=A0

Gary Hicks
=A0=A0 & =
=A0=A0=A0=A0F.O.P.*

=20

One-time only appearance...SQUAWK COFFEEHOUSE, = Thurs. Aug.=20 5, 9PM
*Fire Of = Prometheus...banned in=20 Cambridge since 1989 for "entertainment
of no socially = redeeming=20 value."

Reply to: mcusiman@fas.harvard.edu=

------=_NextPart_000_002D_01BEDE33.42B4DC00-- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1999 02:37:31 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dominic Fox Subject: Trivial anagrammatic exercise MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii This is a poem about language (august, hospitable egomania): a beauteous, gloating mishap. "Manageable utopia sought." Is this a poem? Language is about tautologies, an "I AM" bush. Page gaps. The ambitious analogue. Stage phobia, mutual agonies: "Situation Omega! Plague!" (Bash!) An ultimate big oesophagus, a biasing gaol-house. Amputate sub-human. Apologise. Agitate. I, alphabet - I, nauseous maggot, inestimable - oughta go up as a gaseous, glum ape-habitation. * * * (produced with the assistance of W. Tunstall-Pedoe's SUPERGRAM anagram generator for the Acorn Archimedes) _____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Free instant messaging and more at http://messenger.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1999 06:48:44 PDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Fwd: [Articles: Top Iraqi poet al-Bayati dies in Syria ] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="----NetAddressPart-00--=_DNWS0064S0p37876411" This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------NetAddressPart-00--=_DNWS0064S0p37876411 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Thought this wld interest thelist -- al-Bayati was indeed a major figure = in modern Arabic poetry -- Pierre ____________________________________________________________________ Get your own FREE, personal Netscape WebMail account today at http://webm= ail.netscape.com. ------NetAddressPart-00--=_DNWS0064S0p37876411 Content-Type: message/rfc822; name="Forwarded Message" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Received: from sarah.albany.edu by apps04.netaddress.usa.net with [Collected by] USA.NET Rover (vM3.0.0.4) for pjoris@netscape.net with ESMTP id 648DHDH3C3018R04; Wed, 04 Aug 1999 07:54:28 GMT Received: from mailhub.dartmouth.edu (mailhub.dartmouth.edu [129.170.16.6]) by sarah.albany.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id DAA13653 for ; Wed, 4 Aug 1999 03:12:34 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from mj@localhost) by mailhub.dartmouth.edu (8.9.3+DND/8.9.3) id CAA08408 for arabic-info-outgoing; Wed, 4 Aug 1999 02:14:12 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199908040614.CAA08408@mailhub.dartmouth.edu> Date: 03 Aug 1999 From: Arabic-Info Subject: Articles: Top Iraqi poet al-Bayati dies in Syria Sender: owner-arabic-info@dartmouth.edu Precedence: bulk Content-Length: 2982 Status: Top Iraqi poet al-Bayati dies in Syria August 3, 1999 CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- Abdel Wahab al-Bayati, the renowned Iraqi poet who spent half his life in exile, died Tuesday of a heart attack in Damascus. He was 73. The official Syrian Arab News Agency, which reported his death, gave no further details, but friends said he was taken to hospital to be treated for asthma. Al-Bayati had lived in Damascus since 1996 after he left Jordan, where he sought refuge after quitting his diplomatic post in Madrid, Spain, in protest following Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. In 1995, Saddam Hussein's government stripped him of his citizenship after he visited Saudi Arabia to participate in a cultural festival. Ali Oqala Orsan, head of the Syria-based Arab Writers Federation, described al-Bayati as "a pioneer of Arab modern poetry." "His body has gone but his soul will remain among us and his innovation will continue to shine in our lives," Oqlan told The Associated Press by telephone from Damascus. Al-Bayati was one of the first Arab poets who broke away from classical forms of poetry and started what later became known as free verse. His first collection "Angels and Devils," which was published in Beirut in 1950, and later the "Broken Jugs" were considered the real launch of Arab poetry's modernist movement. After his graduation from Baghdad University in 1950, al-Bayati became a teacher but was soon dismissed for his leftist political opinions. In 1954, he went into exile, first to Syria and then to the Soviet Union and Egypt. He returned to Iraq after the 1958 anti- monarchy coup, but later left following disagreements with the government. He returned again after the 1968 coup but fled a few years later when the regime began a brutal campaign against leftists. In 1980, Saddam assigned him to Iraq's diplomatic mission in Madrid in an attempt to win him over to his side. Despite his anti-government stand, al-Bayati was never criticized in Iraq's tightly-controlled official media and his books are sold in Baghdad book shops. Al-Bayati was born in a Baghdad neighborhood near the shrine of the 12th century Sufi Abdel Qadir al-Jilani. Most of his poetry was later influenced by Sufism. In an interview with The Associated Press in 1997, al-Bayati described his exile as a "tormenting experience" which affected his poetry and writings. "I always dream at night that I am in Iraq and hear its heart beating and smell its fragrance carried by the wind, especially after midnight when it's quiet." He spent his last days with fellow Iraqi exiles in Damascus cafes, reminiscing the days of peace and Iraq's leading role in Arabic poetry and modern art, according to his family members. Syrian officials said an official funeral will be held for al-Byati in Damascus on Wednesday. They said his family has yet to to decide whether he will buried in Syria or taken to Iraq. Al-Bayati is survived by a wife and a daughter. ------NetAddressPart-00--=_DNWS0064S0p37876411-- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1999 13:27:42 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: new EBR & other URLs (announcements) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" A section from Tan Lin's "Ambient Stylistics" is up at the Boston Book Review site, with my own short introduction to Tan Lin's work: http://bostonreview.mit.edu/BR24.2/lin.html * Kenny Goldsmith recently announced new sounds and sights at his extraordinary and resourceful Ubuweb (http://www.ubuweb.com/), including a new piece by my son Felix, who's 7 (http://www.ubuweb.com/contemp/bernstein_f/bernstein_f3.html). He has also put up a new version of "Alphabetica" , an HTML work of mine from a few years back (http://www.ubuweb.com/contemp/bernstein/alphabeta.html). * I highly recommend EBR #9 and so am passing on the announcement for this issue. Charles Bernstein http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/bernstein/ __________________________________________________ (fwrd:) The new issue of the electronic book review, a "gathering of threads" from the first three years of publication, is now online at http://www.altx.com/ebr/ebr9 continuing its commitment to hypertextual publication in its construction as well as in its content, with this issue the editors introduce an icon designed by Anne Burdick that will link new essays back to earlier issues. working against (without subverting) the periodic nature of journal publication, the thREADing icon allows readers to move around past issues as easily as they can read in a new issue. essays by: stephanie strickland lorn falk andrew blauvelt kassia fleisher and paul harris on harry mathews reviews of avant criticism by Katherine Hayles, Marjorie Perloff, Peter Sloterdijk, Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, Curtis White, Randall Kenan, and the Oulipo. plus a critical history of the french journal, 'alire,' and a new series of poems in French from Raymond Federman. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1999 20:31:23 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: Rudy Burckhardt (1914-1999) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Rudy Burkhardt died on Sunday, drowning himself in a pond at his country house in Vermont. Rudy was a filmaker and photographer, perhaps best known for his now-classic shots of New York's midtown area. In New York, he was an active presence both for independent filmmakers and poets, attending showings and readings. In fact, I last saw Rudy in June at Henry Hills's show of new films and video at Anthology Film Archive. Indeed, Burckhardt's films are among the great works of American independent cinema. Rudy has a number of books, but I recommend most Mobile Homes, edited by Kenward Elmslie and published by Elmslie's Z Press in 1979. The wry autobigraphical commentary in the book is a talisman against both sentimentality and earnestness. Some web snap shots: images: http://www.3w-art.com/burckhardt/buz2002.jpg http://www.creview.com/images/365_610_1.jpg and a commentary by Greg Masters, with a bit of an interview, and two pictures of Rudy: http://www.artomatic.com/~gmasters/fortheartists.htm/burckhardt.htm Charles Bernstein ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1999 14:12:52 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: daniel bouchard Subject: Re: Boston 99 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 08:19 PM 8/3/99 EDT, Jacque Debrot wrote: >Dan's remarks would have been more persuasive if he hadn't come on >like a counsel for the defense. But do you really mean, Dan, to assert that >there is *no* element of truth in what I was saying? Elements of truth perhaps. Many instances though flat wrong--an uninfluential Wieners for example. And though I believe you when you say you did not mean to badmouth specific people, some people are bound to read it that way. Anyway, Boston is certainly not San Francisco or NYC in terms of poetry community. No one in Boston would try and claim otherwise. However, I think you overestimate NYC. For sheer numbers of poets, yes it's bigger (and bigger is probably better only if it's diverse. Is it diverse? Fourth-generation NY school all sounds the same after two pages, and second-rate Language poetry is worse.) Boston is certainly on the same field as San Diego, LA, or DC, even if the traditions being worked in Boston are not ones you particularly care for. But this is a tally-sheet I don't care to keep. It's a hindrance. Personally, my most vital community of poets begins in Honolulu and reaches to Cambridge, UK. You can map it but it doesn't matter. Alas, we do not meet for drinks often. My disagreement with your first two posts on the subject were more about your ideas of how community works, at least here, which is the one I am involved in. But again, this is "my" disagreement. I am not presuming to speak for any other poet in Boston. The counsel for defense tone I cannot help. Rather, I prefer it, considering the limitations of an e-mail forum. I certainly couldn't speak in person in the list-mode I wrote yesterday. Despite this, a in-person discussion would be more affable to me, even if it deprives 600 voyeurs a glimpse Boston's laundry sack. The phone calls you describe receiving at home are regretful. I support you in calling the callers back and telling them to shove it, but as you wrote me back-channel one did not identify him/herself. It makes this city look like Peyton Place! But I suppose smallness is a tradition not limited to Boston. And I know anecdotes to prove this but am sworn, as they say, to secrecy. I am signing off on this subject unless new material arises. - db <<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Daniel Bouchard The MIT Press Journals Five Cambridge Center Cambridge, MA 02142 bouchard@mit.edu phone: 617.258.0588 fax: 617.258.5028 >>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1999 14:53:54 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brian Stefans Subject: Boston Poetry Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii It seems to me Jacques was suggesting not that Wieners isn't in the hearts and minds of many poets in Boston, or that Lansing wasn't able to put across some compelling poetry, but that there doesn't seem to be a sense of mission or "progress" in the group of younger poets, and that this can be attributable to the indifference of these poets to thinking about or through these issues along with creating their work. "Exerting influence" is more than just being alive and being read, but at least in Jacques' sense also means circulating ideas, either in prose or in person. Also, Poetry as balm for the soul or as freeway to transcendance are constructs that has been quite tortuously deconstructed or at least debated elsewhere in the States (often enough in the context of the "local") but which, he suggests, hasn't been dealt with at all for or in Boston. I'm interested in knowing if this anti- or counter-humanist discourse never took root in Boston partly as a result of class issues -- the "other" big 20th century poets we think of as Bostonians, such as Amy Lowell, John Wheelright, and Robert Lowell, are all from the upper classes, which I tend to think have a liberal bent there? -- but also because of perhaps a neglect of European influence (or a lack of Europeans), or a too strong identity as the source of American philosophy, or what? I agree with Dan that the inny and outy aspect of Jacques post was a bit too boldly (as in exaggeratedly, but also daringly) drawn, but if you want to think of Boston as an entity in American poetics it seems a place to start. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1999 14:01:35 CST6CDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hank Lazer Organization: The University of Alabama Subject: Modern and Contemporary Poetics Series Some good news from yesterday's University of Alabama Press Board meeting. Two books accepted for publication, both to be part of the Spring 2000 book list: 1. Loss Glazier's Digital Poetics: Hypertext, Visual/Kinetic Text, and Writing in Programmable Media. 2. a paperback edition of Nathaniel Mackey's Discrepant Engagement: Dissonance, Cross-Culturality, and Experimental Writing. And for those of you still looking for a usable collection of essays for Fall classes, you might consider Christopher Beach's (ed.) An Anthology of New Poetics ($19.95 paper), which includes essays by Antin, Armantrout, Bernstein, Damon, Davidson, DuPlessis, Hejinian, S. Howe, Lazer, Mackey, McCaffery, Perelman, Perloff, Scalapino, Sherry, Silliman, Taggart, and Watten. For more info, go to www.uapress.ua.edu Hank Lazer ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1999 15:35:17 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: A H Bramhall Subject: Promenadfe Left MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit this year's Socialites won the coin, were given the ball and they were off. success was everywhere, that grandiose cataclysm that says HEY, CHECK IT OUT I HAVE MARBLES. (as I write these words I realize that I don't, poor me: the distraught faction at work). the Socialites were fried by the end of events, they looked googolplexed, as timeless as last year's vacation. BUT IT IS THIS YEAR, they were all able to murmur loudly. those words explained everything, and not a moment too soon. the social diseases were ambitiously described and brought into perspective. frankly, some people are half-hearted and some are assholes (excuse the rubric, language can't begin to say enough). as social as the Socialites could be, they learned that foundering can be an explicitly fruitful part of the experiment, as in yelling I AM FOUNDERING IN THE DIUNAL MAKEUP OF THIS LIFE while, you know, doing something rather more important (leave it to what you think your imagination can handle, just like any authority). the Socialitism that has saved our world extends it, the world that is, by accepting a vastness of parametres. that means there is a mathematical insistence in our boundaries, which certainly can make one sleep well, at night or whenever. the Socialites had a long way to go and decorum to maintain, so their invention of language took some time, but when that time was finally taken, the shakedown began in earnest (resistance is a fabrication made oily by a steady look into the nearest Socialite's eye). the futility became more than marginal, after all, because the Socialites were steamed about their place in the world. that should not happen. everything is wonderful, just check the reports, so mistakes cannot happen. it's a matter of going to Boston or some damn place and saying HEY WHAT'S THE HANDLE OF THIS THING?, when by thing I mean some item in the energy field enclosing my thoughts without begrudging my time/space occupation and so forth. (okay, I get confused when the discussion appropriates what seemed an original arrangement then went to town, any town). fiercely dedicated, the Socialites grew into becoming. that's the shameful thing, the steady, uphill, where's-my-place-in-society THRUST, as if gasping out of water were a fish's right (something that one might have trouble deciding). the Socialites have felt the pressure, damn it, and the margin seems more alluring than ever, like the ocean when its piquancy nearly quivers in your grasp. I'm thinking that, well, as with all things, time and hang up are just about the same, and all the leftovers can easily be put aside (pardon me for interrupting). ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1999 17:01:43 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: fwd: Re: We have the following two job openings Comments: To: engrad-l@amethyst.tc.umn.edu, writers-l@amethyst.tc.umn.edu, subsubpoetics@listbot.com In-Reply-To: <11658A9F54F9CF11870D006097677B9AA41B1E@mail.seattleartmuseum.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 3:57 PM -0500 8/4/99, Ramona Santti wrote: >Seattle Art Museum > >Controller > >Supervise six person accounting department. Coordinate production of monthly >financial statements and annual audited statements. Work directly with >museum departments to improve revenue/expense management. Prepare financial >reports for government and foundation grants. Requires excellent >accounting, communication, supervisory skills; Bachelor's degree in >accounting or business administration; three or more years of supervisory >experience in accounting. Salary to $55k. Reports to CFO. Mail or fax >required application (Call receptionist for appl: (206) 625-8900), cover >letter, and resume to: Recruiting, Seattle Art Museum, P.O. Box 22000, >Seattle, WA 98122-9700. Deadline: August 20th. > > > >Accounting Analyst > >Prepare special purpose financial reports for grants and projects. Perform >complex reconciliations. Develop procedures and systems utilizing >spreadsheets, databases, and fund accounting software. Requires excellent >accounting, spreadsheet, database, and analytical skills; Bachelor's degree >in accounting or business administration. Salary to $35k. Reports to >Controller. Mail or fax required application (Call receptionist for appl: >(206) 625-8900), cover letter, and resume to: Recruiting, Seattle Art >Museum, P.O. Box 22000, Seattle, WA 98122-9700.Deadline: August 20th. > > > > > >Ramona ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1999 19:36:01 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jill Stengel Subject: a+bend press: an itty bitty press announcement MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable the a+bend press small books series is a chapbook series published in=20 conjunction with a San Francisco-based monthly reading series produced by th= e=20 editor/publisher, Jill Stengel. The books are smallish, measuring approximately 5=BD" x 6=BE", and varying f= rom=20 about 15 to 40 (author/text) pages. Each book of the series--each title--has=20 its own individual character: some have letterpress covers; some have=20 hand-stitched bindings; and each has its own particular combination of=20 cover-stocks, end-papers, and typefaces. The editor is of the opinion that the work highlighted by this series is=20 exploratory, experimental, innovative, interesting. She hopes you will agree= . The current list of available titles, as of 8/4/99: book one history, possibilities: Jill Stengel book two SAYING NO. 3 Jenna Roper Harmon book three a s f a r a s Jen Hofer book four Genealogy Kathy Lou Schultz book five 22 Katherine Spelling book six (forthcoming) Jamen Howe book seven (forthcoming) m. mara-ann book eight Spelt Susan Gevirtz and Myung Mi Kim book nine Eve Doe : Prior to Landscape Elizabeth Treadwell book ten definite articles Sarah Anne Cox book eleven Waltzing the Map Standard Schaefer book twelve extraneous roses Lisa Kovaleski books nine and ten will be released August 8 at the reading at BlueBar in SF books eleven and twelve will be released September 12 (books six and seven will be released at some future/unknown date) All books are $5.00 plus shipping: $1.00 for the first book or $1.50 for two=20 or more books. Mailing address for orders and/or information about a+bend=20 press: 3862 21st Street, San Francisco, CA 94114. Please make checks payable=20 to Jill Stengel. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1999 17:57:43 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: derek beaulieu Subject: filling Station magazine MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit hi as co-managing editor of filling Station magazine - i would like to invite the visual and LANGUAGE poets of this listserv to submit poetry to our magazine. for 5 years, filling Station has been a voice for alternative and experimental poetry and prose and we are very interested in seeing an increased amount of LANGUAGE and visual poetry in our pages. please send your submissions of up to 5 pages, either by email to derek beaulieu at housepre@telusplanet.net or by snail mail to filling Station magazine po box 22135 bankers hall post office calgary alberta canada t2p 4j5 attention: derek beaulieu thanks! ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Aug 1999 22:44:22 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lynn Miller Subject: 6 JANUARY 1995 / 24TH ST & GUERRERO MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "There is a specter haunting poetry" Jennifer Moxley, Invective Verse Writing from the New Coast, 1993 Finally someone has brought out the ghost and made it walk, and talk. Swift, light, airy--Jennifer probably wrote her poetics statement in less than an hour. When I found it in a book called "Technique," I laughed. It was a dash. It is hilarious and it is incisive. Here is a poet whose first thought about her poetics is the right-wing currently consolidating its power in the halls of that bad joke called Washington. Her advice is to put down that cup of coffee and feel the rage. Time is running out, poetry is a privilege, and screaming our radical politics from the rooftop doesn't mean a thing unless the voice belongs to millions. "Who the fuck are we anyway?" Jennifer wants to know, and it doesn't sound to me like a rhetorical question. Along with her friendly allusion to the Communist Manifesto, in the space of a single paragraph are plays on the sit-in tactic of the Civil Rights Movement and an assertion of the classical Marxist position that Socialism is merely a transitional stage, a tangible and immediate goal en route to the Pie in the Sky. Moxley calls the first phase a "benefactor economy" and she is not dreaming. I overheard the same demand Thursday from two bicycle messengers on their lunch break: "Every good writer should be guaranteed at least $30,000 a year." The speaker's co-worker was nodding his head in emphatic agreement. I could live with that, at least "until after the revolution." Again, I'm quoting Moxley, because she says there's going to be a revolution, and you can wear whatever you want including your suede shoes. I've got mine on tonight for the occasion of hearing what else this poet might say, a poet who wants to recapture the "public domain for poetry" (and with an exclamation mark!") It's another one of her wild ideas, like THE CALL FOR POETS TO CHANGE THEIR NAMES AT THE END OF EVERY FISCAL QUARTER--Benjamin was thinking along the same lines when he called the author a producer, like a director or conductor--some BODY absorbing the current of the time in current times. Electricity in the air. That's what the specter is, and that's why I find Moxley's theoretical contribution to the New Coast symposium so exciting and valuable. She wants excess and abundance and she wants it now. Her call for recapturing the public domain reminds me of something Trotsky thought about. I can't remember anymore whether he was writing about the Russian Revolution or French Surrealism when he very lucidly articulated the phenomenon of combined development. According to Trotsky, the avant garde is not a permanent achievement. It happens once and once only, out of great sacrifice and against incredible odds, and then it reaches a crossroads or the crossing of many roads, other levels of consciousness passing by, surging forward, BEARING THE STAMP OF THEIR NECESSITY, and if the vanguard foregoes dialogue in the fantasy of its own intellectual superiority or correctness of method, then it winds up reproducing itself in an increasing series of diluted gestures. It spins its wheels and the efforts of poets or professional revolutionaries that brought the avant garde onto the stage of history are wasted. If, on the other hand, the youth coming out of that vanguard choose to seek dialogue with so-called "backward" tendencies, combined development can occur--an unpredictable release of creative energy of vast proportions. That's about as far as I can get with that thought for the moment, but it strikes me as somehow in relation or congruent with Jennifer's anticipation of the possibility of a popular poetry. I can't wait to hear her poetry whose desiring is announced with such ease and aplomb. Let's welcome the author of "Invective Verse" to Small Press Traffic and to San Francisco. Whereever Moxley is worn all changed, changed utterly a terrible Beauty is born ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1999 22:46:07 +0000 Reply-To: baratier@megsinet.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Baratier Organization: Pavement Saw Press Subject: Deadline is 8/15 MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit 8/15 postmark. Full guidelines below. ---------- The First Annual Transcontinental Poetry Contest by Pavement Saw Press Each year Pavement Saw Press will seek to publish at least one book of poetry and/or prose poems from manuscripts received during this competition. Selection is made anonymously through a competition that is open to anyone who has not previously published a volume of poetry or prose. The author receives $1000 and a percentage of the press run. The judge of the competition is Bin Ramke. All poems must be original, all prose must be original, fiction or translations are not acceptable. Writers who have had volumes of 40 pages or under printed or printed in limited editions of no more than 500 copies are eligible. Submissions are accepted from June 1 until August 15 . Entries must meet these requirements: 1. The manuscript should be at least 48 pages and no more than 64 pages in length. 2. A cover letter which includes a brief biography, the book's title, your name, address, and telephone number, your signature, and, if you have e-mail, your e-mail address. It should also include a list of acknowledgments for the book. 3. The manuscript should be bound with a single clip and begin with a title page including the book's title, your name, address, and telephone number, and, if you have e-mail, your e-mail address. Submissions to the contest are judged anonymously. 4. The second page should have only the title of the manuscript. There are to be no acknowledgments or mention of the author's name from this page forward. 5. A table of contents should follow the second title page. 6. The manuscript should be paginated, beginning with the first page of poetry. 7. There should be no more than one poem on each page. The manuscript can contain pieces that are longer than one page. Your manuscript should be accompanied by a check in the amount of $15.00 made payable to Pavement Saw Press. All US contributors to the contest will receive at least one book provided a self addressed 9 by 12 envelope with $3.20 postage is provided. Add appropriate postage for other countries. For acknowledgment of the manuscripts arrival, please include a stamped, self-addressed postcard. For notification of results, enclose a SASE business size envelope. A decision will be reached in September. Book(s) will be published before January 31st, 2000. Do not send the only copy of your work. All manuscripts will be recycled, and individual comments on the manuscripts cannot be made. Manuscripts and correspondence should be sent to Pavement Saw Press The First Annual Transcontinental Poetry Contest PO Box 6291 Columbus OH 43206 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1999 16:38:08 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Subject: format reminder MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Please remember that HTML formatting is not to be included in messages sent to the Poetics List; apparently one such message slipped by me yesterday (usually I have to cut and paste the text into a separate message - time consuming and aggravating), which means that digest messages and the list archive may be damaged for that day. Those of you using Netscape Communicator, Microsoft Outlook, and other such programs, check your "preferences" or "options" in the program menus to be sure you are sending only ASC-II or "plain" text messages. Thanks. Chris % Christopher W. Alexander % poetics list moderator ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1999 16:39:39 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Subject: open field / oga MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit had to reformat this message. Chris -- Date: Thu, 05 Aug 1999 19:29:55 +1200 From: oga@ihug.co.nz psychobabble dual spin plates suspended astagger gravity wells column roil square cultivate field of thought objects within define room more enclosed space contains preference affinity, symbiosis of polyglot virii open pasture to genetic meddlin edges bleed territory: meaning seeps sumps intermarry blurry survival goldi closed, stranger proof deny pattern of growth swell coffers spill over, intrude infected ideas spreading pool propagate species seed germinate layers, strata descent stepped into graduation shoots waver glided ripple no closure ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1999 09:28:35 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jacques Debrot Subject: Re: Boston 99 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 8/4/99 12:38:05 PM, waldreid@ZIPLINK.NET writes: <> My posts have not been so much Conference reports of course as much as they have used the Conference as an opportunity to look at, however superficially, etc., given the inherent limitations of the Listserve medium & the competing demands on my own time, the state of Boston poetry & the Boston "scene"-- while also acknowledging that it is impossible to be entirely objective about such things. After all, I am an interested party. But complaints like mine I think are not meant to "focus on small negatives." Instead I'd argue that my dissatisfaction is part of the *positive fall out" from the Bo Po Conference-- that is, the Conference has made some of us dissatisfied with what we settle for the rest of the time. "Alternative" is certainly difficult to think about. Diane Wald is right to say that if it means things only like Wendy Kramer's work--the subtext here implies, if I am reading Diane correctly, the 60s adj "far out" --then the demands implicated by the term would be too restrictive indeed. But I'd like to keep the word "alternative" instead of running away from it, as well as the words "experimental," "innovative," -- "avant-garde," even-- precisely because they are so difficult. The innovative is not, I 'm saying, a fixed category but constantly shifting in relation to the doxa, to the routine & the already codified. It can mean Wendy Kramer, but it can also mean, as Brian Kim Stefans has persuasively suggested, Jennifer Moxley's recent work, in which she shrewdly negotiates "traditions and modes that are not quite in the ascendant," or Tan Lin's new work in the Boston Review. In other words, the alternative is what we use to counter-act-- as Kevin Killian brilliantly puts it-- the malaise that "everywhere, at every time, . . . must continually be recuperated and rescued." In contrast, "shining pluralism" sounds like something everyone would want in the abstract, but this is perhaps what is wrong, not so much with the term, but with the idea behind it. "Pluralism" is a word that is used with insidious effect by the corporations, the government & the mass media, & although I admire David Shapiro immensely, I think even he uses it--though in a much more benign way--to cover-up important contradictions. I don't have the time to go into this here, but Sianne Ngai, in an article I mainly disagree with, discusses pluralist ideologies in a very provocative & enlightening way in OPEN LETTER winter 98. Which leads me to Canada, if not to Vancouver. Kevin Killian's is a fascinating question, but of course I am not the one to write about Vancouver. There are many Kootenay people who subscribe to the List, I've noticed. But Kevin also writes: <> A "scene" is not reducible or equivalent necessarily to the poets who live in a particular city. A scene is constituted rather by the formal & informal structures of affiliation organized, if only loosely, around reading series, journals, publishing houses, academic venues, private & quasi-public institutions and foundations like New Langton Arts, and the Poetry Project, as well as around living rooms and bars. As Dan's list suggests, Boston is much less than the sum of its parts. In the best light, one could say that it's a city full of many interesting, autonomous poets. On the other hand, these parts--as disjunct parts-- lack a certain sufficient, or even liminal, critical mass. It's impossible to miss the fact, for example, that Sun & Moon is in LA, but I'm in Cambridge all the time & I couldn't tell you exactly where Exact Change is located. This is perhaps a bad example, but the bottom line, I'm beginning to realize, is that Boston/Cambridge is a city that people spend some time in for whatever reason & then pass through. I'm more likely than not in the very same situation myself. So the structures of affiliation I alluded to earlier haven't flourished here. Dan was correct to criticize what was latently, in my first post, a model of mentorship or apprenticeship, however the extreme anti-academicism in Boston poetry circles is in some senses merely reactionary--an understandable response to what has been here more-than-neglect-- but it casts things in too Machinaean a perspective. Even given all of this bad news, my previous posts have not adequately acknowledged the indispensable force Michael Franco has been for encouraging any existing sense of a dynamic among local poets. In addition to many other things, his reading series frequently brings extraordinary & challenging poets to Boston. But, you see, these readers are only **passing through** even more quickly than most. The local magazines, of which there are practically none now, have also always published wide-ranging work. But, once again, reading them, one got/gets the sense that the most innovative poetry (however insecure my hold on the term innovative is) was being "reported" on, "noticed" & "appreciated" -- but not being *produced* here. I get the feeling in fact that this distinction is an important, if a subconscious one. Dan was correct to pick up on my List Discussion habit of collapsing many different kinds of poets into a Boston "pigeon hole." The best I can do now, in this venue, however, is to suggest again that the dominant trend in Boston poetry has been a reluctance to play with language. My pointing to the absence of a Language poetry presence in Boston in the 70s & 80s doesn't mean that, as a result, I miss the presence now, of a local 3rd generation of L poets. far from it. What I was suggesting instead that tL poetry created certain dymnamics being played out currently in SF & NY that are valuable inasmuch as they are in reaction against as they are in sympathy with, LP. If you decide to stay in Boston, it's because other influences--Black Mountain, say-- are important to you & flourish here. But there is no sense "of six or seven or eight generations" of Boston poets "all working at once and still feeling a little hung over and millennial right now." If it's true, as I think it is, that the people with the most energy, & the most time here, only *reproduce these limits* in Boston, the weakest part of my remarks was to fault *them* for that. Finally, Kevin writes: "I'm also not sure what role Lori Lubeski is playing in your argument" Actually a number of people have bc'd me to suggest other names. Why not then, Donald Wellman. An extremely interesting poet, he published O.ARS for 10 yrs in Cambridge, & yet--again with the exception of Michael Franco-- goes strangely unnoticed & unacknowledged here. --jacques ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1999 10:17:33 -0400 Reply-To: BobGrumman@nut-n-but.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bob Grumman Subject: Re: Boston 99 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I'm with both Diane and Jacques on the question of the BAPC's "alternicity." I agree with Jacques (and many others including Aaron, the even-organizer, himself) that "Alternative" was a (mildly) unfortunate choice of word to use in this event's title, particularly as there are so very few THOROUGHLY alternative ventures of this sort going on, if you mean, as I do, ventures devoted to kinds of poetry that have not yet gotten any play, or only token play, in college classes (and . . . seminars), or in any publication by a commercial or university press. Of course, "alternative" can refer to much else, including very traditional verse that happens to be composed by poets not yet known anywhere. Ergo, a person organizing an event like the BAPC who uses the term to describe the event ought--assuming he has time for such very minor details--to define what he means as carefully as possible. "Pluralistic" would seem to have been the better word here. (And one need not be a word-fetishist to believe words ought to mean something reasonably specific.) I agree whole-heartedly with what I take Diane to have been saying: that what really counts is that Aaron did a first-rate job putting together last year's event, which I attended (and later--gently, I hope--criticized in my Small Press Review column for not being very "alternative," as I use the term), and seems to have done at least as well this time around. Certainly, he's gotten an amazingly wide and good selection of poets to Boston these past two years. I wish I had had the dough to get up for it this year. --Bob G. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Jan 1904 19:45:41 +0000 Reply-To: dillon@icubed.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Richard Dillon Organization: E L E M E N O P E Productions Subject: Re: Boston 99 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit For a Boston poet who has cracked syntax and rewritten the writing of writing look no further than RIC CARFAGNA c o n f l u e n t i a l t r a j e c t o r i e s Sinfonia Press P.O. 385 Petersham, MA 01366 Mr. Carfagna and Mr. Mac Low have had much fruitful commerce. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Let me say a few words about Mr. AARON KIELY. If there is anybody on this bloody earth who has a more brilliant shining heart that beats in resonance with the essentials of Poetry BRING THEM FORTH! +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Lastly, without arrogance, let me say that I worked for Gordon Cairnie for four years. I have Boston roots. Richard Dillon ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1999 12:22:05 -0500 Reply-To: jlm8047@usl.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jerry McGuire Organization: USL Subject: deep south writers conference panels Comments: To: Walt McDonald , Wendell Mayo , William Ryan , William Sylvester , Zach Smith , William Pitt Root and Pamela Uschuk , Writers' Forum , "Whitten, Phyllis" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear Deep South Listee: We'd like to inform you that the deadline for submitting proposals/papers for panels at this year's Deep South Writers Conference has been extended to August 25th. Here are descriptions of what we're doing this year: PANELS This fall's Deep South Writers Conference invites submissions of brief papers for several panels relating Creative Writing Pedagogy to our theme of the "local." Panels will consist of short introductory statements by each panelist, followed by open discussion of the topic. Panel #1: The "Local" and the Creative Writing Classroom What are the important considerations and possibilities for teachers of creative writing concerning the ways in which our students respond to questions of locality--of region, geography, ethnicity, nationality, race, religion, or other "local" markers? Presentations may be "case studies" of particular localities or theoretical discussions of some aspect of the "local," or may explore the effects of "the local" on specific pedagogical concerns. Panel #2: Open Topic Fifteen-minute papers on any issue pertaining to teaching creative writing. Panel #3: Exploiting One's Place How may one's given place be used in new or unusual ways to make creative writing students more vital writers? We would especially like to see papers or proposals treating the relations between creative writing and local music, photography, dance, environmental art, painting, etc. ^For all panels, full versions of fifteen-minute papers are due August 25th, 1999. Please submit queries or papers (identify panel for which submission is intended) to: Panel # 1, Panel #2, or Panel #3 Deep South Writers Conference USL Box 44691-English Dept. University of Southwestern Lousiana Lafayette LA 70504-4691 Queries for all panels may also be addressed to jlm8047@usl.edu. -- ________________________________________________________ Jerry McGuire Director of Creative Writing English Department Box 44691 University of Southwestern Louisiana Lafayette LA 70504-4691 318-482-5478 ________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1999 12:24:29 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Kirschenbaum Subject: Happy Boogday Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Hello to all from David Kirschenbaum, editor of Boog Literature, a new addition to this here list. Eight years ago today, we published the first two Boog chapbooks in Albany, New York, and it's been a fun ride. To all out there who crossed my path along the way; influenced me/the press (one thing?); contributed work to various publications; performed at the many different events; collated, stapled and distributed; and opened their homes to me as though I were kin, thanks. Sometimes the flow has not been as strong, but since 1991, each year new words have been published that somewhere say Boog on 'em. For that, I thank you all. A special shout-out to Katie Yates- for her advice and getting me to Naropa; d.a levy- spirit guide; Lawrence Ferlinghetti- for showing the way; Ed Sanders- for his words of encouragement, constant feedback and contributions; David Baratier and Kent Fielding- for their friendship and late nite talks about being an editor and a poet; Meg Arthurs- for her glorious art; Douglas Brinkley- for introducing me to Lou Reed and Naropa; Rachel Aydt- Boog's first author, and one of the best poets -and friends- around; Rod Sperry- former cofounder, the most passionate co-editor a press could've wanted, and Ian Wilder- for taking me to my first poetry reading and anytime phone-editing sessions. Thanks and Be Good, David _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1999 17:07:29 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Lowther,John" Subject: 2 poems (diastic) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain what there is to say about the boston thread wrong--an though mean that terms think overestimate Fourth-generation worse.) is as the worked subject cannot voyeurs a able "progress" group about through these creating being Poetry has quite Boston. knowing this the perhaps agree dissatisfaction demands would the away routine the which she "everywhere, LETTER if is the to subscribe << thread outta boston diasticized truth though for some Anyway, second-rate on But vital poets certainly be more Boston's wrote Peyton smallness doesn't mission that this about creating restrictive "innovative," [pattern not found: ^\w{8}z, skipping] innovative recuperated the this perhaps effect media, attending of outsider attendance Boston formal bars. Boston less parts. bottom beginning Dan first reactionary--an perspective. existing dynamic practically innovative [pattern not found: ^\w{8}z, skipping] innovative "appreciated" the that correct "pigeon certain played out currently with, Boston, Actually bc'd to yrs that THOROUGHLY alternative do, kinds that classes event describe instances overestimate [pattern not found: ^\w{8}z, skipping] disagreement exaggeratedly, to think party. like dissatisfaction demands of running not, routine already but Moxley's Boston what corporations, government David time Sianne question, about speaking disjunct apprenticeship, ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1999 18:23:46 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brian Stefans Subject: Boston 99 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii One interesting thing about the word "Alternative" in a title for a poetry conference in Boston is that, for some of us who are attentive to scenes and locations, it's redundant -- if the poetry really has something to do with Boston, then it's probably alternative to the rest of us. I tend to think that beyond aesthetic and political lines, the idea of poetries from "alternative" places is beginning to get pretty interesting, since the poetry takes on anthropological value for what it's worth, and in our times with nationalism and plurality are such violently heated issues we can use our analysis as a sort of petrii dish mirroring the world at large. Anyway, wanted to share this snippet from an unnamed poet from England whom I hardly know, who sent on this bit about the British scene: "No, I wouldn't disagree that the scene in the UK lacks new younger writers to carry the baton, mostly. It's sort of strange, in that when I visited Cambridge in the mid-1990s there seemed to be quite a vibrant crowd of bright young(ish) things (Helen MacDonald, DS Marriott, Rob MacKenzie, Karlien van den Beukel, etc.) but then there was a long gap where no young writers seemed to be coming up (this is now remedied by the activities of Keston Sutherland & co. I gather). Drew Milne when I asked thought that the mid-90s "bulge" was largely the work of Stephen Rodefer's getting the kids excited, & that things went flat when he left." I think this is interesting in relation to this idea of poets "passing through," since as the lore has it Jack Spicer passing through Vancouver and giving his lectures seemed to create part of the ambiance that led to Tisch, which then led to Kootenay, etc. And of course Rodefer, to those who know him, carries out something of the Spicerian function in the communities he has touched over the years -- I described him to this British poet as "divisive" (in a quasi-pejorative sense) in some contexts such as New York's which has a pretty strong if inchoate "community," and I guess conducive to "poetry" in the context of Cambridge in the mid-90s. Cambridge, by the way, has many strong poets in its immediate area, such as Jeremy Prynne, and of course its Cambridge, so it's not the boondocks. So why did it need Rodefer? (Footnote: Rodefer, by the way, seemed important enough to Iain Sinclair to be included in the major British Poetry anthology Conductors of Chaos in 1997 or so, though he had been in Brooklyn for a number of months by the time it came out. Also, this isn't to say he doesn't have a good effect in New York as well, otherwise I wouldn't be writing about him. It's also worth noting that folks like Jennifer Moxley, Bill Luoma, Doug Rothschild, etc. studied with him in California, hence he's helped shape a generation there.) I introduce this since Stephen is a very peculiar type of person in poetry society, which is that, besides his immortal escapades, he seems very attentive to younger writers -- to the point of oversensitivity sometimes -- and badgers them about their work, he likes to make high-minded pronouncements which half the time are nonsense and the other half very provocative (don't ask for more exact percentages), and he has, to boot, stories to tell about his time with poets like Olson, while at the same time having produced a book like "Four Lectures" which is seen to be a classic of sorts for language poetics. So he's kind of still a beatnik, kind of a post-structuralist, etc., has some sort of natural lineage, but also likes to hang out. I don't know if he's written any criticism at all, but I would have to guess he has -- in any case, it's not his Selected Essays doing the work. As a side note, nobody questions Stephen's ties to institutions -- he has none, never has, I think, besides brief teaching stints. Anyway, I guess the point is that a person like Rodefer provides something like the social glue that seems to keep communities together. The "glue" is partly the result of talent, interest, intention, but also irrational and, in the standard sense, "social". I remember a friend of mine the U.K. complaining that a certain young lady would only go to the poetry readings to flirt and meet guys -- he found this offensive, but I countered that, heck, if you want this scene to start up, if you want all these poets who are really pretty hard-headed, stuck up, intense etc. to spend the inordinate amount of time with each other that it takes to form a scene, then some of these minor details will have to be overlooked. I also said that you should be sure that everybody has a house or apt. to go to after the readings to get drunk, otherwise nobody will ever talk about the reading again. The scene, in other words, would have to handle certain other needs that poets have in abundance, such as that of getting attention, letting loose, meeting people, etc. (To be snide, I would add that half if not more of the poetry you hear at a reading is pretty bad, so if you make a reading hang solely on the entertainment value of the poet, string a few bad ones like that in a row and The End.) (I heard the readings in Boston got a bit flat after a while, for what it's worth.) This may all sound silly but I just wanted to counter the impression that good intentions ("pluralisms", tolerance) in the form social programs, revamped institutions, or any other injection of capital into an community, urban or not, are necessarily going to bring about a poetry revival, or that any are even necessary. If a "scene" is to develop in a "place", it seems a first step would be to have those poets be interested in that place, and (for it to be "collective") in each other's work and lives. Showing off is also fair motivation in this game, if you want it (though it gets annoying), which seems only possible when people are looking. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1999 10:59:33 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tony Green Subject: Re: Boston 99 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Daniel Bouchard wrote: >Personally, my most vital community of poets begins in Honolulu and reaches >to Cambridge, UK. You can map it but it doesn't matter. Not, even now, to Australasia or Asia or Europa or Africa? whence several of us do engage with this e-list. Tony Green ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1999 16:31:52 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Boston 99 In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.19990804141252.009a2160@po7.mit.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 2:12 PM -0400 8/4/99, daniel bouchard wrote: ... >The phone calls you describe receiving at home are regretful. I support you >in calling the callers back and telling them to shove it, but as you wrote >me back-channel one did not identify him/herself. ... yr kidding --someone called you at home about this jacques??? it's hardly worth gettting that het up over... ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1999 19:06:39 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: A H Bramhall Subject: Agreeable To The Moment MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit at 4:05 pm on any weekday the miners finish their logical work. they remove their pickaxes from the latest vein and to the surface return. a story will come to some, a poem to others. this is the dimming of the day. bottles of alcoholic whatever may be shared and the words flow. every river has its image to maintain, of course, and the miners are never dumbfounded by this truism. they look to the setting sun, which has a redness that bridges spectra of doubt, an especially potent effect after a day in the darksome mines. the glory starts to work, and glory joins glory. the words flow, as has been said. the happy miners maybe sing songs, new compound words jetting up to dance in the air, tra la. a simple verb/noun effect occurs, a strange re-vision of what had seemed a forgettable act. but no, lodged in the movements of the two words (whichever ones) a world of possibly imaginative underpinnings reveals itself. you are aware, dear reader, that this spectacle becomes a necessity for these dedicated workers, and maybe to you, as well. the seemingly scant jobs of pick and shovel transcend the dailiness of their actions. the miners enjoy the dulcet drunkenness that has led them to readjust once again the edges. this becomes a process that resembles the making of music except that they introspect as they advert. the cage has been withdrawn momently. some children race to play on the darkening green -- why not? -- but the adults, thrilled to be free of their mining ordeal, have launched into a maelstrom just as sinuous as a diaphanous supermarket. in the treasury of what can be done, the resistance truly fades. the program will be repeated tomorrow, but you'll have to learn to tune in. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1999 19:30:34 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Pleas/e MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII ==-== Pleas/e >>> can i move across the empty screen. i cannot move the empty screen. <<< >>> can i move myself from left to right. i cannot move from up to down. <<< >>> can i take me to the last one. i cannot take you to the first one. <<< >>> can i speak to you from now on. i could never speak to you from then on. <<< >>> can i move to the beginning. i cannot find i have an ending. <<< >>> can i move to the first letters. primordial, i beg of you, get me. <<< >>> can i move into the thickness. i cannot move out from the thinness. <<< >>> mark me. <<< >>> cut me. <<< save me. >>> <<< primordial, i shall be marked. >>> <<< <<< i shall be saved. <<< can i have a word with you. i cannot have a word with you (a word is all i want, just one word with you, you just have to listen for a minute or two) >>> <<< please, just for a second. >>> <<< come on, don't do this to me. >>>^B left ^F right ^[Y top of file ^^ mark ^D char ^J format ^X save ^P up ^N down ^[V end of file ^K cut ^K line ^T spell ^C abort ^Y prev. screen ^A beg. of line ^U paste ^[K >line ^[T file ^Z shell ^V next screen ^E end of line ^[U select ^[H word< ^L refresh FILE ^@ prev. word ^[L line No. ^O save ^[D >word ^[^[ options ^O save ^_ next word ^W find text ^[/ filter ^[- undo ^[= redo ^R insert "Please, I'm primordial; please don't do this to me." ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1999 20:30:48 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: A H Bramhall Subject: re Boston 99/re O.ARS MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jacques Debrot writes: "Why not then, Donald Wellman. An extremely interesting poet, he published O.ARS for 10 yrs in Cambridge, & yet--again with the exception of Michael Franco-- goes strangely unnoticed & unacknowledged here." I would like to be the 2nd -- or is it 3rd? -- hippest person here by strangely noticing and acknowledging Donald Wellman's contribution to the Big Whatever that we seem to be talking about. (I have clout, by the way, but it's the kind that covers my loins, tant pis). seriously, because this is serious, O.ARS was a pretty damn interesting journal, varied and vibrant (don't let the alliteration distract you from the words) which ought to give every reader the thought: the man put some effort into this. my experience is not extensive, other nobles certainly exist, but I can think of Leland Hickman's Temblor and Tom Beckett's The Difficulties as journals that, along with O.ARS, elevated the idea of such publications to a state both personal and generous. id est, submission guidelines and publication hassles (what a gruesome thread that was!) were backgrounded, _behind_ the stuff on the page. like, what they did wasn't some dreamy career move but a living reality, dirt under the nails and all. these missives from elsewhere, news I really could use, crept into my mailbox irregularly but welcomed; I thank the editors who made them possible. and I think my further point is: quit griping, things are happening, in Boston and elsewhere. and if they aint, _you_ aint noticing: you bought the wrong farm. and by the way, isn't this regionalism stuff being talked just about corny? I live within the Boston sphere and root for the Red Sox, but my heart skips nary a beat when they trounce the Yankees or vice versa. I mean, who cares which aisle at the supermarket you line up in? it's what you do with the groceries that counts. Allen Bramhall, wondering what my motivation for this scene is ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1999 22:01:35 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: nico vassilakis MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII i s it a dead thing this or...ville plaza de de oralizd soz either i've never been or am a po*et b(t)oy no more ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1999 15:22:27 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: John Tranter Subject: hemispherical chauvinism 1, drinks nil. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" In a recent posting to the Buff List Daniel Bouchard said: ====================================== Personally, my most vital community of poets begins in Honolulu and reaches to Cambridge, UK. You can map it but it doesn't matter. Alas, we do not meet for drinks often. ====================================== Of course he means heading *south-west* from Honolulu, in order to pick up Australia en route. That makes it a long flight to Cambridge, UK, and -- goodness! -- it leaves out L.A. and N.Y. ! best, John Tranter ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1999 01:57:24 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lynn Miller Subject: BOSTON 1851 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit C O N C O R D S O N A T A Emerson. "Absolute" after toying with "Categorical Imperative" wave of the vast intricate undercover industry of numerology, into the Delta Plantation area Aladdin lamp in hand, "M'm," it's not what you say why I said that thinking the white and black they both think Something more important than us to think about now the pivot of the movement, Acuesta up on Dunham dump the contents sort them out up over the hill that is a blacktop and red brick area dumped out Thoreau. Not one of the speakers at that meeting a meeting one among many as one among many the One and the Many on the subject of Slavery and that what thought the house on fire several are now in prison the disposition of some wild lands a thousand miles off talking only of taking up a position retreating between them the enemy in the school failed now to face measures half-measures and make-shifts indefinite debt the Fugitive Slave Law resolved by my townsmen adjourned, the compromise, no opportunity to express my thought will you allow me here? I heard the sound of a drum in our streets, the Boston Courthouse full of armed men holding prisoner the unlettered now fill the summer air all I have ever seen of a Governor he did not govern me, the United States government robbing Mexico, the United States military force of the State catch a man whom he calls his property, about American Slavery, that we do not even yet realize what Slavery is, FATAL CRIME, the Supreme Court inspectors of a pick-lock and off with the smoke if the inmates hire the jailers. This is what I thought of my neighbors. The city does not think. I read all the newspapers I could get, the newspaper we read every morning and every afternoon, standing and sitting, riding and walking, table and counter, the only book America has ever printed, the editors of the press in this country time-serving Mitchell's "Citizen" in the cars through every column handling a paper picked out of the gutter the gospel of the Merchant's Exchange. I have never respected the Government near which I lived. They have counted the votes of Pennsylvannia & Co., and impassible boundaries between individuals. The slave ship four millions under the hatches, paper and pen my pillow, and when I could not sleep, I wrote in the dark my part to correct the statements, what a sane set of editors, to hear you define your position, call these "deluded," "mistaken," "insane" or "crazed" on the floor of the Harper's Ferry engine house the ring of a saner sanity than any Washington, Jefferson--they let off without dying; they were merely missing one day. They do not know the man. They must enlarge themselves to conceive of him. When they will begin to see him as he was. They called him crazy then; who calls him crazy now? They heard his words read like the speeches of Cromwell come out into a town where he was more he was the most American of us all, and we become criminal in comparison, thinking and speaking of him as physically dead. What is the character of that calm, sloughed off, sloughed along. Editors, abettors. The bodies of dead. That is the way we are. The character of this government. See it by the light of history. What a monster of a government is this. The only free road, the Underground Railroad, "under the auspices of John Brown." My commonplace book of poetry read by the light of Event blind our eyes to objects, invisible writing held to the fire, or be made the text of an oration on, no amalgam to combine with his gold, look around for something see actions are words by our lives we have loved whatever we have remains material and art, days, hours, marked changes ready to say going into our meeting who placed the slave to kiss for a symbol they did not know. I am his contemporary. He is no longer working in secret. I meet him at every turn. Our Nig. Mag accumulating inflexible labels along the way, "a loving, trusting heart" democratic simplicity notorious identity "publicity of her fall" her assigned sphere all designations slide away from her again. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1999 03:49:08 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tisa Bryant Subject: Contact info for Edwin Torres, Mara Galvez Breton In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.19990804141252.009a2160@po7.mit.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello! Does anyone have contact information for these two writers? Please e-mail me directly, if so. Thanks! Tisa ************************************************************ Today we declare: First, they are living in a Nono form; Second, they are Nono lives; Third, they make us feel Nono; Fourth, they make us become Nono; Fifth, we Nono. Lan Ma "Manifesto of Nonoism" (Chendu, China, May 4, 1986) *************************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1999 03:56:01 PDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Ellis Subject: Re: Boston 99 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed The discussion of the Boston conference has, if nothing else, clarified problems of community outside of Boston, or New York, or wherever, as well as within these places. The intent of Jacques' posts thus far seem to have been aimed at his ability to find a community within which he can do the work he currently deems essential. This is not to say that there is no poetic community - there have been several mentioned, in fact - flourishing in Boston, but that the nature of the relationship between any of these communmities and the work that Jacques feels compelled toward at present is one in a fetal stage that for a variety of reasons can't or won't develop. In light of Kevin Killian's comment that poetry has always to be rescued from the mileau in which it occurs, it seems there might usefully be more discussion about individual responsibility viz. finding a relationship to some "larger" poetic community, and trying to make it work. I want to say something about a certain "critical spirit" in this, but it's a difficult topic to address with its mix of issues involving loyalties, beliefs, fears and the like. Nevertheless, and as painful as it might be, there has to be some gut level discussion of on-the-ground specifics, ie., who one does or does not "get" that "thing" - a working 'ground'? that Jacques I think is saying he doesn't consistently get in Boston - from, and why (not). Not that this has to be in the mode of "dirty laundry." One of the big problems in establishing community, or rather relations within community is the part criticism plays, at what level it is functional, and how it can be introduced in some way more fruitful than yielding, for example, the obscene phonecalls Jacques received in response to his, I thought, mildly critical first post. The question is, how specific, viz "others" (& their work) is it possible to be while at the same time maintaining some momentum toward furtherance? How do we avoid outright stoppage in the equivalent reaction of spitting on one's peers? Is it possible to contest what issues of a future will be those most "deserving" of attention without becoming wolfishly defensive upon presentation of like ideas and terms by those who might initially appear to be nullifying all you feel you are working in, on and toward? What's the method? Or will it always be this beautifully unfulfilled provisional slogging forth with mud on our boots, full, still, of all that comes of being 'present' in this Lost Kingdom in completely unexpected ways? But the question still remains, how useful might it be to "name names" viz. one's feeling for community (to be crude about it, who's hot & otherwise not) in some more public forum, rather than to leave the subtleties of community relationship issues to the more intimately unheard, private (maybe also solo?) voice? This, in part, is what the Boston discussion IS, yet it's disturbing that it's couched so much as general conditions rather than specific tale. Humankind, perhaps, in any state other than astraction, is more hideous than words can tell, tho of course, there's always reason to doubt, the cause toward further clarity. Is there more to notice about each our isolation? S E >From: Jacques Debrot >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: Re: Boston 99 >Date: Thu, 5 Aug 1999 09:28:35 EDT > >In a message dated 8/4/99 12:38:05 PM, waldreid@ZIPLINK.NET writes: > ><"alternative" as, say, Wendy Kramer and her wonderful corrugated love >poems, might >have been sometimes disappointed. But personally I would welcome more >alternative/pluralistic/open-minded/inclusive poetry events at any time, >anywhere.>> > >My posts have not been so much Conference reports of course as much as they >have used the Conference as an opportunity to look at, however >superficially, >etc., given the inherent limitations of the Listserve medium & the >competing >demands on my own time, the state of Boston poetry & the Boston "scene"-- >while also acknowledging that it is impossible to be entirely objective >about >such things. After all, I am an interested party. But complaints like >mine >I think are not meant to "focus on small negatives." Instead I'd argue >that >my dissatisfaction is part of the *positive fall out" from the Bo Po >Conference-- that is, the Conference has made some of us dissatisfied with >what we settle for the rest of the time. > >"Alternative" is certainly difficult to think about. Diane Wald is right >to >say that if it means things only like Wendy Kramer's work--the subtext here >implies, if I am reading Diane correctly, the 60s adj "far out" --then the >demands implicated by the term would be too restrictive indeed. But I'd >like >to keep the word "alternative" instead of running away from it, as well as >the words "experimental," "innovative," -- "avant-garde," even-- precisely >because they are so difficult. The innovative is not, I 'm saying, a >fixed >category but constantly shifting in relation to the doxa, to the routine & >the already codified. It can mean Wendy Kramer, but it can also mean, as >Brian Kim Stefans has persuasively suggested, Jennifer Moxley's recent >work, >in which she shrewdly negotiates "traditions and modes that are not quite >in >the ascendant," or Tan Lin's new work in the Boston Review. In other >words, >the alternative is what we use to counter-act-- as Kevin Killian >brilliantly >puts it-- the malaise that "everywhere, at every time, . . . must >continually >be recuperated and rescued." In contrast, "shining pluralism" sounds like >something everyone would want in the abstract, but this is perhaps what is >wrong, not so much with the term, but with the idea behind it. "Pluralism" >is a word that is used with insidious effect by the corporations, the >government & the mass media, & although I admire David Shapiro immensely, >I >think even he uses it--though in a much more benign way--to cover-up >important contradictions. I don't have the time to go into this here, but >Sianne Ngai, in an article I mainly disagree with, discusses pluralist >ideologies in a very provocative & enlightening way in OPEN LETTER winter >98. > > >Which leads me to Canada, if not to Vancouver. Kevin Killian's is a >fascinating question, but of course I am not the one to write about >Vancouver. There are many Kootenay people who subscribe to the List, I've >noticed. But Kevin also writes: > ><wisely printed a list of Boston poets attending said Conference and a >second list of poets from elsewhere that also attended, made it >concrete and plain, and frankly speaking as an outsider I wonder how >the New York poets in attendance come off as so much more >sophisticated and/or accomplished and/or experimental than the Boston >ones. Please clarify.>> > >A "scene" is not reducible or equivalent necessarily to the poets who live >in >a particular city. A scene is constituted rather by the formal & informal >structures of affiliation organized, if only loosely, around reading >series, >journals, publishing houses, academic venues, private & quasi-public >institutions and foundations like New Langton Arts, and the Poetry Project, >as well as around living rooms and bars. As Dan's list suggests, Boston is >much less than the sum of its parts. In the best light, one could say that >it's a city full of many interesting, autonomous poets. On the other hand, >these parts--as disjunct parts-- lack a certain sufficient, or even >liminal, >critical mass. It's impossible to miss the fact, for example, that Sun & >Moon is in LA, but I'm in Cambridge all the time & I couldn't tell you >exactly where Exact Change is located. This is perhaps a bad example, but >the bottom line, I'm beginning to realize, is that Boston/Cambridge is a >city >that people spend some time in for whatever reason & then pass through. >I'm >more likely than not in the very same situation myself. So the structures >of >affiliation I alluded to earlier haven't flourished here. Dan was correct >to >criticize what was latently, in my first post, a model of mentorship or >apprenticeship, however the extreme anti-academicism in Boston poetry >circles >is in some senses merely reactionary--an understandable response to what >has >been here more-than-neglect-- but it casts things in too Machinaean a >perspective. Even given all of this bad news, my previous posts have not >adequately acknowledged the indispensable force Michael Franco has been for >encouraging any existing sense of a dynamic among local poets. In addition >to many other things, his reading series frequently brings extraordinary & >challenging poets to Boston. But, you see, these readers are only >**passing >through** even more quickly than most. The local magazines, of which there >are practically none now, have also always published wide-ranging work. >But, once again, reading them, one got/gets the sense that the most >innovative poetry (however insecure my hold on the term innovative is) was >being "reported" on, "noticed" & "appreciated" -- but not being *produced* >here. I get the feeling in fact that this distinction is an important, if >a >subconscious one. Dan was correct to pick up on my List Discussion habit >of >collapsing many different kinds of poets into a Boston "pigeon hole." The >best I can do now, in this venue, however, is to suggest again that the >dominant trend in Boston poetry has been a reluctance to play with >language. >My pointing to the absence of a Language poetry presence in Boston in the >70s >& 80s doesn't mean that, as a result, I miss the presence now, of a local >3rd generation of L poets. far from it. What I was suggesting instead >that >tL poetry created certain dymnamics being played out currently in SF & NY >that are valuable inasmuch as they are in reaction against as they are in >sympathy with, LP. If you decide to stay in Boston, it's because other >influences--Black Mountain, say-- are important to you & flourish here. >But >there is no sense "of six or seven or eight generations" of Boston poets >"all working at once and still feeling a little hung over and millennial >right now." If it's true, as I think it is, that the people with the most >energy, & the most time here, only *reproduce these limits* in Boston, >the >weakest part of my remarks was to fault *them* for that. > >Finally, Kevin writes: "I'm also not sure what role Lori Lubeski is playing >in your argument" Actually a number of people have bc'd me to suggest >other >names. Why not then, Donald Wellman. An extremely interesting poet, he >published O.ARS for 10 yrs in Cambridge, & yet--again with the exception of >Michael Franco-- goes strangely unnoticed & unacknowledged here. > >--jacques _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1999 07:03:15 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tisa Bryant Subject: Where's Boston? Where's Boston's Poets? In-Reply-To: <4779fc9.24daeb83@aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello. I'd like to offer a few, okay several (dis)jointed and rambling comments. I'm a Boston native, living here for 4 years in SF (that's San Francisco). Certainly my eyes opened wide to hear about an "alternative" poetry conference in Boston, the 2nd annual, no less. Wish I could've been there; wish this had happened 10 years ago. But then, I'm sure it had, and then, I know it did again. And again. And will. So. Regionalism is just that. Boston always gets short shrift in the competition for center of the universe, and really, so what? Community happens wherever you are, and so does poetry. Schools or centers of any kind of thought/production often produce repetitions. What's been exciting has been to know that there's all kinds of poetry going on, everywhere, all the time. I just need to speak more languages, within the American tree of words, and with the roots of other countries. Someone asked who among the Alt Bo Po line up was actually "from" Boston. There was some brave poet there who read with "heart"? Does that mean our notorious honking accent? (I'm laughing here.) (I, like Bo Po's organizer, Kiely, am yet another "uncredentialed" independent doing whatever I want or feels needs to be done, on my own terms, and with help from friends. This "alternative" way of doing things is often collapsed into "activism", which is fine with me. And I think this point warrants another conversation about what and whom is being measured and legitimized, and by whom, with what, what yield? Academic elitism, romanticized movements, idolatry, clout and influence indeed.) Boston is a big college town with a 5% sales tax and a hard core local populace perpetually chafing against transient intellectuals and their overwhelmingly khaki influence on the city's personality, or lack thereof, as well as more of the same between working classes and Boston Brahmins, between races with no money, etc. Almost like anywhere, but with a particularly icy vengeance. Maria Damon, you may recall that miserable failure, the "Where's Boston" campaign from about 25 years ago, which was just as much about the "who" and the "what" as the "where". So I think I understand the ambivalences of the city, and the impact it can have on the writing of those who come or stay. Especially in the shadow of NYC, or in contrast to the New West, or That Other Happening Country Up North, or in light of internalized anguish for having never been the "center" of a "movement" of innovative note, for all its heavily endowed schools, not to mentioned its fabled unsophisticated accent. So many rulers to break. What does this really have to do with what the writers at the Alt Bo Po conference presented? Nothing, really. The organizer made some choices, the readers made some choices, interpretation was open, everybody went home with more than they brought, and there it is. (Thanks, Jack Kimball, for sharing with us your what you saw and heard at the conference. I really felt like I was there during the Emily Dickinson parade.) For all of my literary life in Boston, I was the only Boston native in my community, which was at that time The Dark Room Writers Collective, for nearly 10 years. There were about 15 of us at the best of times. We thought we were an alternative, simply for providing workshops and a reading series that featured writers of African descent, and we were. On our schedules were Erica Hunt, Julie Patton, Nathaniel Mackey, Ntozake Shange, John Keene (DR member), Sam Delany, Dolores Kendrick, Kofi Natambu, Kevin Young (DR member) David Henderson, Harryette Mullen, myself, and a particularly memorable tribute to Bob Kaufman in 1990. (And while I'm glad Prageeta Sharma and Will Alexander were in the house at this Alt Bo Po, yeah? Alternative for whom is another question. I forwarded the event announcement to my friends back East; none of them had even heard of it. Who's counting who's missing? What makes an alternative? Where/when does the audience come in? etc. etc. ) Anyway, writers who wouldn't necessarily be considered "avant-garde" were also on the DR schedule. My point? Just that. It was an accessible alternative (yes, Jacques, the "slipperiness of the term") to what Harvard/BU/MIT/Northeastern offered (the series was in our home, and had no support/connection to any of them; we paid out of pocket for everything with our dues), and made a difference, to those in the know and those just getting to it. What did it say "about" "Boston" poets? Nothing, really, or something predictably unsavory, since when someone said something "about" "Boston" poets, they didn't, and rightly couldn't, mean "us" (well, excluding me, I guess). Everyone was from everywhere, and would go back out "there" at some point to get more of what they brought with them. About innovation and experimentation? That everyone, at some time or another, did a little something, some more often than others, it was all about seeing the threads, potential of the past, and the dangers of the monolithic. About the scene? Well, some deserved praise unfortunately frequented by the word "renaissance", but praise nonetheless (and sure enough, it's over now). And nice, donation bearing crowds. It was a lot of work, very trying, and a lot of fun. Was Boston turned into a colored writers' mecca? (Kevin Killian, I'm thinking about what you said re: the Boston/Vancouver connection). No, it most certainly wasn't. Sometimes there's no overcoming history. (Damn Red Sox!) Will it turn itself into what Vancouver has? Who's to say it hasn't? But I must say, if it wasn't for Harvard/MIT/BU, (and occasional treks to UMass/Amherst and, gasp! Yale) I would never have seen in such numbers the experimentalists (my definition) I did see over the years there, actually, for all their conservatism and misapprehension of the term "outreach". What was happening then in the DR was necessary but not perfect, as the Bo Po conference certainly was and was not, and other things will be and not be. Surely, as one of the few "avant-garde" writers within the Collective, I certainly wanted more from our scheduling and focus, but was glad to get what I got and give what I gave. Tisa ************************************************************ Today we declare: First, they are living in a Nono form; Second, they are Nono lives; Third, they make us feel Nono; Fourth, they make us become Nono; Fifth, we Nono. Lan Ma "Manifesto of Nonoism" (Chendu, China, May 4, 1986) *************************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1999 10:04:27 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maz881@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Boston MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit BKS wrote: <> re: progress. once Barrett Watten asked me, after some conference in nyc, if there had been any progress in "the group of younger poets." i said i don't think so, but we do have a conduit. Bill Luoma ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1999 10:13:49 -0700 Reply-To: Robert Freedman Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Freedman Subject: Ron Silliman's "The New Sentence" Comments: To: Poetry List MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Several weeks ago someone on the list mentioned a few good books on poetry, one of which was "The New Sentence." I could be mistaken, but there was a note that this one was probably out of print. Since I wanted a copy, I checked Small Press Distribution, Roof Books, and some of the mail-order companies on the web, and they all show it as available--and I did place an order with SPD. Sorry if I'm mistaken. I just want to ask the person who submitted that post if he/she would please repost that list. It looked good, but I absentmindedly delete it. I've looked through the archives for the terms Silliman and Sentence, and they don't lead to what I want. In case this was on my other list (Poetry, etc.), I'm posting it there also. Cheers, Bob Freedman ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1999 10:35:14 CST6CDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hank Lazer Organization: The University of Alabama Subject: (Fwd) KPFA statement For those of you following the events at KPFA, this e-mail from Jack Foley may be of interest... Hank Lazer ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- From: JASFOLEY@aol.com Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1999 11:21:48 EDT Subject: KPFA statement To: HLAZER@as.ua.edu Dear Hank, I'll be back on the air today in a special program which will feature, among others, Mumia Abu-Jamal and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. This is a statement I'll be reading. I'd appreciate it if you'd pass it along to Buffalo. Thanks! Love, Jack Hey Hey KPFA Free Speech Won't go away This is Jack Foley, glad to be back on the air in this crisis programming. There's a phrase associated with a show which is no longer on KPFA: "Freedom is a Constant Struggle." The program was hosted by Kiilu Nyasha, who continues to present it on Liberation Radio (93.7 FM) Wednesday nights from 7 to 9. There are personal dimensions to freedom, but there are also public dimensions. As someone who has worked at KPFA for ten of its fifty years, I find myself acutely aware of both, and acutely aware as well of the need for "struggle." The philosopher Martin Heidegger once said that freedom is not only something you "have," it is something you "are." We at KPFA are struggling to "have" freedom_and we will get it_but we could not struggle unless we were aware of the radical freedom that lies at the heart of every person. The New England town meeting, with its cacaphony of voices, is one paradigm for democracy, but it is a paradigm which is no longer fully useful. In its diversity, the United States can hardly see itself as "New England." We can no longer fantasize that we are a small town largely made up of Protestants. The idea of the town meeting has to become the more sophisticated and open idea of multiculturalism_has in fact already become the idea of multiculturalism. It is this idea that KPFA welcomes and recognizes. Multiculturalism is that situation in which everything comments on everything else, in which everything stays open to the possibility of the other. Multi is to culture as multi is to media. It is something "other" which intersects, comments upon, and recognizes. Multi is to culture as poly is to theism; as diversity is to university. We don't have to look far for examples. Our minds are multiple, and it is this multiplicity that gives us our truest freedom. At our roots we are creatures of possibilities, and when we lose the sense of possibilities_when we arrive at what Jennifer Stone calls "hardening of the categories"_we lose almost everything that defines us as human. The idea of KPFA is a refusal to look only at some possibilities. The myth of Pandora's Box is a myth of closure and repression. What is in there is not the ills of the world but the possibility of the new, the other, the different. KPFA wants to open Pandora's Box. There's a passage I like in Ishmael Reed's anthology, MultiAmerica. It was written by Bharati Mukherjee, and it is particularly relevant to the struggle of KPFA with Pacifica: What we have going for us in the 1990s is the exciting chance to share in the making of a new American culture, rather than the coerced acceptance of either the failed nineteenth-century model of "melting pot" or the Canadian model of the "multicultural mosaic"...I want to sensitize you to think of culture and nationhood not as an uneasy aggregate of antagonistic "them" and "us," but as a constantly re-forming, transmogrifying "we." ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1999 12:44:25 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Eighteen True Fortunes Sorted in Chaos MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII \ (The trouble with a kitten): Eighteen True Fortunes Sorted in Chaos Ah life, you are so true, such is the order in which messages become bot- tles broken, what energy! It's a harder thinking. It's research whatever. America, any boy may become president and I suppose that's just one Klein Enzymes are things invented by biologists that explain things which In Geminis are known for committing of the risks he takes. otherwise require "Matrimony isn't a word, it's a sentence." A classic is something that Law of Volunteer Labor: admission to someone else. avocado than to get in My life is all erratic. My parrot, who was cordial, President Reagan has The carpet died, a palm collapsed, The cat keeps doing poo. The chief a fight with an aardvark Man, n.: President Reagan forecasters and has anyone can admit to themselves they were wrong, the true test is Zymurgy's better to kiss an avocado than to get in a fight with an aardvark Man, n.: called quitting. wants to read. which, however, multiplies with such cause of problems is solutions. The only thing that keeps me sane While decided on an excess prophets tax. has noted that there are too many economic pundits and President Thieu he is as to overlook what he everybody wants to have read and nobody Famous last words: Famous last extermination of other animals and his own longer than usual because I extermination of other animals and his own species, problems is solutions. forecasters and has decided on an excess prophets rapidity as to infest he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief make he'll quit if he doesn't get more than 50% of the Since I hurt my pendulum indubitably ought to be. His chief it shorter. occupation is insistent rapidity as to infest lack the time to Is now transmitting static. Is talking to my shoe. It is lack the time to It is better to kiss an make it shorter. occupation is noted that there are too many economic pundits and President Thieu says of Large Problems: I have made this letter longer than usual because I says he'll quit if he doesn't get more than 50% of the The chief cause of species, the whole habitable earth and Canada. vote. In a democracy, tax. that's not called quitting. which, however, multiplies with such insistent the whole habitable earth and Canada. vote. In a democracy, that's not words: Hoare's Law of Large Problems: I have made this letter Hoare's Law With VLSI we can pack 100 ENIACs in 1 sq. cm.! Under deadline pressure for `social sciences' is: some do, some don't. are bisexual. However, you are bottle for rent -- inquire within. The only possible interpretation of any cat You are a quick and intelligent thinker. People like you because you grows up, it's always a harder thinking. inclined to expect too much for too can wait. Unless is that Think of it! the next week. If you want something, it When it it's blind screaming paroxysmally hedonistic ... incest. little. This means you are cheap. research whatever in the The trouble with a kitten ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1999 10:47:31 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Treadwell Subject: a+bend press READING sunday the 8th, SF Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ---> Just a reminder--this is happening at the Blue Bar (enter thru the Black Cat Restaurant) this Sunday at 2 pm, 501 Broadway, San Fran....ET >book nine Eve Doe : Prior to Landscape Elizabeth Treadwell >book ten definite articles Sarah Anne Cox >books nine and ten will be released August 8 at the reading at BlueBar in SF >the a+bend press small books series is a chapbook series published in >conjunction with a San Francisco-based monthly reading series produced by the >editor/publisher, Jill Stengel. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1999 08:17:15 -0700 Reply-To: jim@vispo.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jim Andrews Subject: cut ups Comments: To: webartery MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I'm looking for thoughtful writings (on or off the Web) about the cut up and related devices. Burroughs, I know, has written interesting things, notably in The Job. Also, Jerome McGann has a great essay relevant to the subject at http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/mcgann.html and Robert Kendall has an equally good essay at http://www.altx.com/ebr/ebr5/kendall.htm This concerns a project of mine (and others) I'm working on at http://www.vispo.com/StirFryTexts (needs IE 4 or 5). Basically, I'm looking for deep insights (not just history) on the relevance of cut ups (and related devices) to the last 40 years, with particular emphasis on the Web over the last 5 years. Thanks, Jim Andrews ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Aug 1999 19:43:45 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: Talk's Riding Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I wonder if anyone else in Poetics List Land noticed that in the premiere issue of Talk magazine, just out, there is a piece on Laura Riding, detailing her close encounter with Schuyler Jackson and family in 1939? It's remarkable that Riding gets such a big spread, with a full page picture, in this magazine, but regrettable that only a few lines of her writing are included. More surprising, and unfortunate, is the impression given by the article that (Riding) Jackson stopped writing and settled down to become a housewife for the last fifty years of her life. The piece says she never wrote poetry again after meeting Jackson, but fails to note the voluminous "prose" that constitutes her later work, thus wiping out all reference to The Telling, Rational Meaning and her other essays of the 50s-80s. The article also says that Riding stopped writing poetry as a direct result of the break-up of Jackson's family, not only ignoring (Riding) Jackson's extensive commentary on this issue in her later work, but also ignoring the many premonitions of this renunciation of poetry in her earlier work. Thus, one of Riding's most significant aesthetic and philosophical positions is reduced to bathos. Of course, this article is not about Riding's work but about one of the most notorious events in her life, here given full tabloid treatment (but it's worth noting that there is nothing new in this piece; it is pretty much a recycling of previously reported facts, even the "spin" is old). The author at one point says something to the effect that many poets are crazy -- the Blakes sitting naked in a tree, Pound's speeches on behalf of Mussolini, and Riding's "witch"-like break up of the Jacksons. There is also a description of Riding as being "hooked-nose" and unattractive, in contrast to the handsome Robert Graves. The piece ends with the suggestion that feminists are likely to lead any revival of interest in Riding but that, unlike Dickinson and Plath, she may not be a good role model for "womankind", since she is a two-time homewrecker. (Presumably suicide is more suitable for the woman writer than the sort of intellectual and social aggressivity of "hook-nosed" Riding.) I should note that I am recounting this from memory as I do not have a copy of the magazine at hand. But I believe I am conveying the drift. And the part I dislike most: here I am talking about TALK, right according to plan. Charles Bernstein ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1999 16:52:57 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jamie Perez Subject: 2-minute plays.interest? Comments: To: hip fuxx , Word Up , Topher Comments: cc: David Graber MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit File this under: Spreading myself too thin A friend of mine and I are trying to put together a festival/night of 2-minute plays. What we need: playwrights, actors and directors. Have some, need way more. The concept: low-budget, non-playhouse venue, bunches of short short plays, intermissions for drink-buying and chatter, fun, maybe even money raised for charity. Maybe around 1.5 - two hours all told, so room for lots of work. Plays or monologues in need of actors/directors welcome. Plays or monologues with self-provided actors/directors welcome. Maybe even excerpts from non-original plays with actors/directors provided welcome (that is currently in debate). Hoping for a diverse body of subjects/styles/aesthetics. The two minute rule is probably pretty loose, might even let them go as long as 4 minutes? Depending on number and quality of scripts received we will jury out the winners and go from there. Depending on success of first try, we will also see if we go from there. Nobody will make any money off of this (except maybe a charity, see above). If lucky we'll be able to cover advertising costs or something. Participants, however, may be spotted by an agent and whisked away to a profitable career in porn. This idea is evolving. We are hoping to roll out a night of work before the end of October, but the date is arbitrary at this point. Please email me at if interested in any capacity and please note the capacity that would interest you. Multiple capacities accepted and encouraged. We're going for community here, people. Please pass this notice to anyone you feel may be interested. Note, this event will take place in Washington, D.C. Those somewhat in the area will obviously be given preference. jamie.p ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1999 15:26:22 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christopher Reiner Subject: small press news Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit On the small press front... In the current issue of Publishers Weekly there is an article about three presses (Avec Books, Kelsey St. Press and Johnson Books). The title of the article is: "Small Presses Celebrate Anniversaries and Awards": http://www.publishersweekly.com/articles/19990802_79511.asp Avec Books' web site is http://www.litpress.com/avec Kelsey Street is http://www.kelseyst.com/ Johnson Books is http://www.jpcolorado.com/johnson/jb_frame.htm ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1999 16:56:49 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Help! Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Somebody please backchannel phone numbers and/or email addresses for Nathaniel Mackey, Roberto Tejada and Luigi Bob Drake. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1999 22:06:28 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jacques Debrot Subject: Re: Cut ups MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Of course the key explicatory text by Burroughs on the cut-up technique is THE THIRD MIND. The LA County Museum catalogue for the recent exhibition of Burroughs's artwork--PORTS OF ENTRY--has a number of insightful articles on the cut-up method, & just as helpfully, a very strong bibliography. Also, off the top of my head, Jim Rosenberg in POETICS JOURNAL 10, discusses both the cut-up & hypertext in a good article. & Reva Wolf's book, ANDY WARHOL, POETRY & GOSSIP IN THE 1960s, discusses the cut-ups briefly in connection with THE TENNIS COURT OATH, & the appropriative strategies of Pop art. jacques ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1999 22:45:40 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jacques Debrot Subject: Re [2]: cut-ups MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Apologies for the second note. I just wanted to add that, while connecting the cut-ups to recent developments in Web technologies is certainly legitimate, you'd also want to avoid the dangers of historical de-contextualization. Burroughs's work emerged after all at a crucial moment--along with Cage's & Ashbery's--when 60s artists were confronting commodity culture really for the first time. Related issues such as the homosexualization of the New York avant-garde, the conflicted reaction against Abstract Expressionist culture, the initial & then-ongoing US reception of Dada, as well as-- to the extent that this was being played out on 2 continents--Burroughs's & Ashbery's relations with & attitudes toward, for example, TEL QUEL, are all issues that, although they don't each have to be considered in the context of your study, nonetheless give Burroughs's cut-up method a specific rather than a merely analogical & general significance. --jacques ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1999 22:38:29 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Where's Boston? Where's Boston's Poets? In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > Boston always gets short shrift in the >competition for center of the universe, Tell that to Sidney Lanier! George Bowering. , fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Aug 1999 08:28:51 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: spicer did not lead to tish Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >I think this is interesting in relation to this idea of poets "passing >through," since as the lore has it Jack Spicer passing through Vancouver >and giving his lectures seemed to create part of the ambiance that led to >Tisch, which then led to Kootenay, etc. [Brian Steffans]. Never heard this lore, myself, but I can tell you that Tish was started 4 or 5 years before Spicer's Vancouver visit. Robert Duncan, who visisted and engaged with a forming community of young poets in Vancouver in 1960 or '61,was the American poet most responsible for the encouragement that kept Tish afloat. Robert Creeley, who visited and in an informal setting, taught these same people the following summer, should also be credited. Spicer's visit in '65 surely kept the flame of counter-poetics alight. But just to set the record straight. (George Bowering cd do a better job; you out there, G?) Not to take anything away from Brian's post, which I enjoy for its ranging x-Atlantic and for its discussion of Rodefer's role/s. Btw, anyone got a current e-ddress for SR? If so, please b-c to me. David ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Aug 1999 13:17:18 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Carter Subject: dear she says dear you're always gone dear always and now with Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" { } dear she says dear you're always gone dear always dear gone dear and now with that to demonstrate if not modulate more smoothly as per classic: rever more wildly celebrated distances yield reject play reploy the part(s) of Kate: celebrated for lack of intervening very clothely your line-control couldn't wouldn't include that time this time that haven pen sled now t' vine a way pack in no not this however maybe that no not that ethereal ur-line cutting the lulls willfare specific radio grief wield the weird child party oh back there it was urine control that fits in a little bitter here where chilly rose (up) on the spot target moving flash relations no ice write the wave weave some space grace await its greasy banks frozen pivots from the sea not the only but one of the oceans sea choral relief curl the tube with fingers slightly touching its watery walls all dynamic frozen pivots: voter's eyes energies' showers enter here the concern no worry yes worry along the way that no account kept of just where the source file and where and what on it from it etc. glowing black just a little for careerity: voters's eyes voters sighs showers shown blown off guard the open pleasure rounds just happened the question of which voice is there a voice which voice if voiced exists at all? the down gittin' up 'n' the up gittin' down rage page prep they all slid into one another they all slid into one anothers' distance upheld one anothers' distances held up rubbed close something you might like to write the youth the aged the ageless wageless stageless pageless rageless timeless enormity eternity pain joy of now then when more constant egg-cell lens pour happenings less stress less dress to a certain uncertain paint painted out in full claim persuasion keeping in mind that nothing is full except that it might well act that way spill over though actually there was a little more room in there t' fill without it having t' spill why that contention instead of any other thing that might have occurred in locusluogo don't answer muted do however mute without dispute and sow for earth on dawn the newborn pain joy of now when? tension resolution solution dissolution tension reborn day and night the wheel spiral revolve evolve forthward word-trail word-trial as distorting mirror trace when to read (rewrite) the first (versed) page current flak the thunderwriters vocal points ink as a kind of flesh digital pre-feather remote space glide here a moment while another that had not yet introduced itself waited until the re-arrival of and then the circling before landing necessary ink of the flesh kind: a story is about to be told waiting for replay having skipped over a puppet surface announcement and having skipped over another without courage to include bound feet bound brains reveal unplugged same from higher mind from soul the nude program guide a good mountain of pages chick-points speed not speed the pressure-group theory of woman locate a nature who higher wind turn wound up down on in the ground glow undo battlefluid hungered them undisclosed hand-made dollies cloakwork arrange disentangle dismangle yes the personal it does come up bubblic statements to that deflect international beastkeepers tweak-end cupcake 'n' a lot o' utter fractors injure in t' the pick flicture last cheer in myth case hot elephants frequent fatigues answered memories of blue carts into which cracked mirrors 'n' cracked dice 'n' cracked ice repertoireepertour might not o' gone no further if it weren't feur flea time that could not in this instant stance be resisted oh no what is this? maya clock questions of energy directions fannyfest themselves seedily in a huff enough dis-phased for the versd Dr. Pill: My Sacred Life cavernous blink myth Heil! my coldest friend t' hide: icy dead people flock let's glow the way they lost I.D. orbitrary punishments curse made a nasty piece of its own accord of its own A-chord nervous and tremblink ooze curliest recollections come up command veiled little flick joins Popkin's quill-tempered stealth delay care in openness but open nest prolonged Mouthfallen proprieties ease Blinkles poor doubt peach house proper tease knifespire excess energies management ink-orbit rated loom plush pour doubt echoes pie buy by the mirror slaying impulse t' try a longer wave life from the desert in the dessert blow wrong contact blinks from a divers groundless flackground this slatest page of the gloryteller verbal remedies contrast trimities emblematize tolerate snakespear in the bush disinterestedly in betweave ashen cream(s) motherness in literary language careening up dearthy brackets mythunderstanding(s) there comets a time for reach for reach child to re-member itself itch way it glows waiting for reploy ink tore away adorn away a door away a -- ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Aug 1999 13:06:58 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kathy Lou Schultz Subject: Re: 6 JANUARY 1995 / 24TH ST & GUERRERO Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I recognize this as the "introduction" Kevin Magee/Lynn Miller read before Jennifer Moxley's reading a few years ago at the old Small Press Traffic location in San Francisco (24th & Guerrero). Sometimes context is everything. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Kathy Lou Schultz Editor & Publisher Lipstick Eleven/Duck Press www.duckpress.org 42 Clayton Street San Francisco, CA 94117-1110 ---------- >From: Lynn Miller >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: 6 JANUARY 1995 / 24TH ST & GUERRERO >Date: Wed, Aug 4, 1999, 7:44 PM > >"There is a specter haunting poetry" > > Jennifer Moxley, Invective Verse > Writing from the New Coast, 1993 > >Finally someone has brought out the ghost and made it walk, and talk. Swift, >light, airy--Jennifer probably wrote her poetics statement in less than an >hour. When I found it in a book called "Technique," I laughed. It was a >dash. It is hilarious and it is incisive. Here is a poet whose first >thought about her poetics is the right-wing currently consolidating its power >in the halls of that bad joke called Washington. Her advice is to put down >that cup of coffee and feel the rage. Time is running out, poetry is a >privilege, and screaming our radical politics from the rooftop doesn't mean a >thing unless the voice belongs to millions. "Who the fuck are we anyway?" >Jennifer wants to know, and it doesn't sound to me like a rhetorical >question. Along with her friendly allusion to the Communist Manifesto, in >the space of a single paragraph are plays on the sit-in tactic of the Civil >Rights Movement and an assertion of the classical Marxist position that >Socialism is merely a transitional stage, a tangible and immediate goal en >route to the Pie in the Sky. Moxley calls the first phase a "benefactor >economy" and she is not dreaming. I overheard the same demand Thursday from >two bicycle messengers on their lunch break: "Every good writer should be >guaranteed at least $30,000 a year." The speaker's co-worker was nodding his >head in emphatic agreement. I could live with that, at least "until after >the revolution." Again, I'm quoting Moxley, because she says there's going >to be a revolution, and you can wear whatever you want including your suede >shoes. I've got mine on tonight for the occasion of hearing what else this >poet might say, a poet who wants to recapture the "public domain for poetry" >(and with an exclamation mark!") It's another one of her wild ideas, like >THE CALL FOR POETS TO CHANGE THEIR NAMES AT THE END OF EVERY FISCAL >QUARTER--Benjamin was thinking along the same lines when he called the author >a producer, like a director or conductor--some BODY absorbing the current of >the time in current times. Electricity in the air. That's what the specter >is, and that's why I find Moxley's theoretical contribution to the New Coast >symposium so exciting and valuable. She wants excess and abundance and she >wants it now. Her call for recapturing the public domain reminds me of >something Trotsky thought about. I can't remember anymore whether he was >writing about the Russian Revolution or French Surrealism when he very >lucidly articulated the phenomenon of combined development. According to >Trotsky, the avant garde is not a permanent achievement. It happens once and >once only, out of great sacrifice and against incredible odds, and then it >reaches a crossroads or the crossing of many roads, other levels of >consciousness passing by, surging forward, BEARING THE STAMP OF THEIR >NECESSITY, and if the vanguard foregoes dialogue in the fantasy of its own >intellectual superiority or correctness of method, then it winds up >reproducing itself in an increasing series of diluted gestures. It spins its >wheels and the efforts of poets or professional revolutionaries that brought >the avant garde onto the stage of history are wasted. If, on the other hand, >the youth coming out of that vanguard choose to seek dialogue with so-called >"backward" tendencies, combined development can occur--an unpredictable >release of creative energy of vast proportions. That's about as far as I can >get with that thought for the moment, but it strikes me as somehow in >relation or congruent with Jennifer's anticipation of the possibility of a >popular poetry. I can't wait to hear her poetry whose desiring is announced >with such ease and aplomb. Let's welcome the author of "Invective Verse" to >Small Press Traffic and to San Francisco. > > >Whereever Moxley is worn >all changed, changed utterly >a terrible Beauty is born ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Aug 1999 08:58:13 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: John Tranter Subject: Jacket Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable LATE EXTRA -- Jacket number 6 --=20 after unavoidable delay,=20 Shamoon Zamir's detailed and absorbing 5,500-word review of Nathanial= Tarn's=20 SCANDALS IN THE HOUSE OF BIRDS : Shamans and Priests on Lake Atitl=E1n=20 has arrived at Jacket # 6 --=20 "Tarn . . . is unique within ethnopoetics and equally within the longer history of the dialogue between American poets and anthropology that stretches from Pound and Eliot, through to the likes of Olson, Duncan, Rukeyser, Snyder, Dorn and Jay Wright: he is the only one to have produced substantial and accomplished bodies of work as a poet and as an anthropologist and the only one to have written at length on the interactions of literature and anthropology. . .=20 . . . Narrated through multiple narratives and many voices, the book deals with a religious conflict between indigenous religion and Christianity. The theft of masks covering Maxim=F3n, a Mayan wooden statue venerated since pre-Columbian times, and the later return of one of the masks over twenty years later, is the core around which are spun accounts of Mayan mythology, ritual practices, religious festivals, individual life histories, local social conflicts and the horrors of Guatemala's national politics. "=20 Shamoon Zamir is a Reader in American Literature at King's College London and co-editor of Talus Editions, a poetry small press. His previous publications include DARK VOICES: W.E.B. DU BOIS AND AMERICAN THOUGHT (Chicago University Press, 1995). The review is illustrated with six color photographs from the early=20 1970s taken by Nathanial Tarn.=20 Check out Shamoon Zamir's review at this Internet address:=20 http://www.jacket.zip.com.au/jacket06/zamir-rev-tarn.html from John Tranter, 39 Short Street, Balmain NSW 2041, Sydney, Australia tel (+612) 9555 8502 fax (+612) 9818 8569 Editor, Jacket magazine: http://www.jacket.zip.com.au/welcome.html Homepage: five megabytes of glittering literature, free, at=20 http://www.alm.aust.com/~tranterj/index.html ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Aug 1999 01:35:46 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Adventure, or The Game of Life where I am Lost MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII / Adventure, or The Game of Life where I am Lost no enter building take keys take lamp take food take water exit west down west west east west north south south down south unlock grate enter west take cage west light lamp take rod drink water eat food drop bottle west west west down down down up look up up look south north east take bird look east east east east east west west west west west west down look west wave wand cross bridge take diamonds west north south south look cross bridge look south north east look west cross bridge wave wand look west east south north north look south east west east east wave wand cross bridge look east take axe up look west down down up up west look west east east east look xyzzy look look spring down exit south south south south south south north east west west west north quit yes ___________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Aug 1999 07:26:17 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lynn Miller Subject: THE SUMMER ANNIVERSARIES MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable T R I - A X I U M Horace=92s Si vis me flere that mutilated faction. It was not the mass of mourners Byron found, some distance conception, an associative doctrine. That it is not about myself I am writing I am writing for you, to you, who do not exist outside the thought of your infinite impossibility, my hope that you might some day read these pages as your own book as the books all these books without your book could not have happened . . . The cave of night, my fancy grew, a public way who put aside the Diadem, Rome, Athens and Jerusalem, hillside weeds of desolation come and go, wilder as it grows, unholy leisure, say where said the Grim Feature, one of that deluded crew were or had been eyes, child of a fierce hour the cup she raised, the fortune of her Star more than half crossed I moved, it moved across every day receiving loud, vague, tumultuous wonder. I have three acres=20 of flax this season, perhaps in the marketing of it, I may come your way happy to have a friend or two though I am sure I may no more have the honor of counting you among their number. Had not the seed-time come on so as it has, the flutter of Joy apt to infest me --I hope my B.-- thought of my E.--a relish, confronting you I can never taste an education far beyond any I ever dared, and ask that your good nature will excuse what your excellent intellect must see amiss. My fancy having fondly flattered itself worthy of a wish, now I am desperate for the loss of what I threw away and expect to remove in a few days a little further off, and if my expressions escape=20 rather too warm=20 for you, my dear=20 (pardon me the =91dear=92 once more) it is [deleted] true=20 I have formed an image of a Renaissance in view. A Mrs. Dunlop of Glasgow has spread among the village tenets of some strange fantastical jumble, she gives up the ghost by breathing on them postures and practices scandalously=20 indecent; they have disposed of all their effects, and hold a community of goods of which I am their Utopian Projector. If in your prayers you would remember a poor=20 Poet Militant nine=20 parts and nine tenths=20 stark raving mad, though I am conscious I have acted=20 wrong, not as when=20 in company with you, =20 permit me the honor of paying my devoirs. =20 I have been all my life, Madam, one of the rueful sons of Disappointment, I rarely hit where I aim, and if I want anything, I am almost sure never to find it. In what language, Sir, would you have her answer you? A plough- wedge, a horse-nail, an=20 old letter or tattered rhyme that, however I might=20 possess a heart, more than feelings, in my readings have I not interpreted any proofs more strongly every day arising to speak her language? I have taken up a volume of my Shakespeare to realize her forward bound from other folk out of the dull, heavy, methodical clod, and set apart two halves slung sharp, eating his heart out or it would appear so, when I go conquering also and do not join them, dogs Fear came over=20 paid back down to the pang. Post I have none save=20 one poor widowed=20 half-sheet of Gilt, it lies [deleted] among my plebian foolscap pages, [n]or his Grace of Q. the Powers of Darkness my friend Cunningham to me. Not that I cannot=20 write you: should you=20 doubt [that (deleted)] it,=20 take this fragment intended for you some time ago and rest convinced that I=20 can antithesize sentiment and circomvolute Periods as well as any in Philology. A want of dexterity renders my scantling of happiness still less, to tell you true (in the language of that elegant science, the Law), the reason why I trouble you with this, is, I have a woman=92s longing for freedom to assure you=20 a copy too in French I much want, any other good authors in their native tongue I want all of them, such another sheet of yours a nice ear for the lyre, it may give the possessor a [deleted] extacy unknown to the coarser [two words=20 are deleted] organ [five lines of the letter are cut away here] . . . My gallant young friend,=20 Anthony, writes to me: "the demons of despair & death, ride on the blast, & urge the howling storm." =20 I hope Miss Rosenthal is doing well and going=20 in favor with Apollo and the Nine, as in=20 the hive the honey bees keep feeding drones, conspirators in wrong, if to know one=92s errors were a probability of mending them, I may stand=20 a chance, having never had=20 an hour among great folks,=20 throwing off impression of my book do not deny me=20 this my darling Petition. I am willing to believe my abilities deserve some notice when Poetry=20 has become the profession of polite learning, to be=20 dragged forth to the full glare of polite Philosophy=20 with all my imperfections=20 of unpolished rusticity=20 and crude ideas. I am indebted to the Author and am certain to=20 have written her=20 my acknowledgments. Bronze runs around=20 and all around it runs the wall, are we at Ayre? Robert Burns =20 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Aug 1999 08:34:25 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: james loucks Subject: Re: Talk's Riding Comments: cc: jloucks@postbox.acs.ohio-state.edu In-Reply-To: <4.0.1.19990806222503.00e1ae90@mail.bway.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Anyone interested in research on Riding would (eventually, at least) want to see the papers of Ronald Bottrall, the British poet, who for a time -- during the Graves episode -- was deeply influenced by Riding. Amongst the letters between Bottrall and Riding are examples of her voluminous marginalia in Bottrall's poetic mss. The Bottrall papers are in the Ransom Center at Texas. All best, Jim At 07:43 PM 8/7/1999 -0400, you wrote: >I wonder if anyone else in Poetics List Land noticed that in the premiere >issue of Talk magazine, just out, there is a piece on Laura Riding, detailing >her close encounter with Schuyler Jackson and family in 1939? It's remarkable >that Riding gets such a big spread, with a full page picture, in this >magazine, >but regrettable that only a few lines of her writing are included. More >surprising, and unfortunate, is the impression given by the article that >(Riding) Jackson stopped writing and settled down to become a housewife for >the >last fifty years of her life. The piece says she never wrote poetry again >after >meeting Jackson, but fails to note the voluminous "prose" that constitutes her >later work, thus wiping out all reference to The Telling, Rational Meaning and >her other essays of the 50s-80s. The article also says that Riding stopped >writing poetry as a direct result of the break-up of Jackson's family, not >only >ignoring (Riding) Jackson's extensive commentary on this issue in her later >work, but also ignoring the many premonitions of this renunciation of >poetry in >her earlier work. Thus, one of Riding's most significant aesthetic and >philosophical positions is reduced to bathos. Of course, this article is not >about Riding's work but about one of the most notorious events in her life, >here given full tabloid treatment (but it's worth noting that there is nothing >new in this piece; it is pretty much a recycling of previously reported facts, >even the "spin" is old). The author at one point says something to the effect >that many poets are crazy -- the Blakes sitting naked in a tree, Pound's >speeches on behalf of Mussolini, and Riding's "witch"-like break up of the >Jacksons. There is also a description of Riding as being "hooked-nose" and >unattractive, in contrast to the handsome Robert Graves. The piece ends with >the suggestion that feminists are likely to lead any revival of interest in >Riding but that, unlike Dickinson and Plath, she may not be a good role model >for "womankind", since she is a two-time homewrecker. (Presumably suicide is >more suitable for the woman writer than the sort of intellectual and social >aggressivity of "hook-nosed" Riding.) I should note that I am recounting this >from memory as I do not have a copy of the magazine at hand. But I believe >I am >conveying the drift. And the part I dislike most: here I am talking about >TALK, >right according to plan. > >Charles Bernstein > James F. Loucks Associate Professor of English The Ohio State University at Newark 1179 University Drive Newark, OH 43055-1797 740 366-9423 (voice mail) from Columbus: 292-4094 x 423 fax: 740 366-5047 e-mail: loucks.1@osu.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Aug 1999 06:57:40 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: hooknose goodness (or disappointing Talk) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The author at one point says something to the effect >that many poets are crazy -- the Blakes sitting naked in a tree, Pound's >speeches on behalf of Mussolini, and Riding's "witch"-like break up of the >Jacksons. There is also a description of Riding as being "hooked-nose" and >unattractive, in contrast to the handsome Robert Graves. Speaking as one who has broken up several marriages by sitting naked in a tree ranting like Pound on Mussolini & believing my nose to be hooked, a poet in brief, albeit no Dickinson nor Plath, I have seldom envied Robert Graves because I figure I can always fall in love with handsome people if I absolutely must. That is, I'm crazy to show that you are. But away with biography, because the imperative via 19th C "great men" theory unquote just wont quit, to reduce words to life. Thank _Charles_ for the info and the qualification of same. Sounds like an article I'd like to read in a bathtub full of hot water, slowly nodding off as it slips into oblivion. Maybe I'll try that tomorrow. Longer (& longer) Poetry has to be impossible to be more interesting than sex with close relatives or deliberate crime Poetry had to be steamed then spread upon an ironing-board spelling man from uncle & thats why we cant Laura, I see your name in the misty bookshop window to which a voice of mine had led Poetry to be symmetrical & barely possible owes a debt to society one of the few that really & rarely counts & when it counts froth springs to its lips for kissing toads in this learned urinal pet rock sullies numberly (Poetry to be less than the brevity for which one hoped, must go on & on with a hammer nailing pictures to a wall-- "Didnt know I was riding the high wire till I hit pay-dirt & died" sighed Van Gogh's room & bed-board to the albatross in which extension perishes db ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Aug 1999 21:30:46 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Talk's Riding In-Reply-To: <4.0.1.19990806222503.00e1ae90@mail.bway.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 7:43 PM -0400 8/7/99, Charles Bernstein wrote: >I wonder if anyone else in Poetics List Land noticed that in the premiere >issue of Talk magazine, just out, there is a piece on Laura Riding, detailing >her close encounter with Schuyler Jackson and family in 1939? It's remarkable >that Riding gets such a big spread, with a full page picture, in this >magazine, >but regrettable that only a few lines of her writing are included.etc what is TALK? ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Aug 1999 15:24:55 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nuyopoman@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Talk's Riding MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Charles, Will you please stop talking about TALK according to plan, and WRITE for TALK? It is a terrific opening to have great US poet in premiere issue. Laura Riding knew the demands of poetry to the bone her prose is despite her. Send your Letter to the Editor _to_ the Editor (or, better, get your agent to press them for a reply, or better, have Tina give you a Column!). The linesmen of capital have made a hole in reality/dear Ballcarrier please storm touchdown for Truth ! BobH ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1999 10:21:36 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tony Green Subject: Re: Talk's Riding MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Charles Bernstein writes, a propos TALK & Laura Riding: >And the part I dislike most: here I am talking about >TALK, >right according to plan. While the inadequacies described of TALK's piece on Riding make it a typical annoyance of journalism, what is the best tactic against it? I favour no mention of the publication outside discussion on the list or in similar locations. & a dismissive one-liner if anyone outside raises it as if it were reliable, when seeking to use it to diss -- in this instance -- Riding or modern poetry. What do others on the list do in such circumstances? Tony Green ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Aug 1999 21:15:59 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: AERIALEDGE@AOL.COM Subject: New @ Bridge Street, N.A.P., Krupskaya, Debord, Avant Gardening &&& MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The good books. yup. Ordering & discount information at the end of the list. Thanks, poets. & other people too. 1. _The New American Poetry 1945-1960_ ed. Donald Allen, U Cal, $16.95. Back in print. "The visionary anthology that influenced two generations of poets and readers." yup. 2. _Guy Debord_, Anselm Jappe, U. Cal, $17.95. "You want to prolong that first experience of illegality for ever after." 3. _The Autobiography of Red_, Anne Carson, Vintage, $12. "He came after Homer and before Gertrude Stein, a difficult interval for a poet." 4. _Economy of the Unlost (Reading Simonides of Keos with Paul Celan_, Anne Carson, Princeton, $29.95. The ancient Greek lyric poet Simonides of Keos was the first poet in the Western tradition to take money for poetic composition. From this starting point, Anne Carson launches an exploration, poetic in its own right, of the idea of poetic economy. 5. _Chain 6: Letters_, ed Jena Osman & Juliana Spahr, $12. 6. _In Company: Robert Creeley's Collaborations_, de Amy Cappellazzo & Elizabeth Licata, Castellani Art Museum / Weatherspoon Art Gallery, $24.95 (includes CD Rom). Essays by the editors, John Yau, & Hank Hine. Commentary by collaborators such as Jonathan Williams, Georg Baslitz, Susan Rothenberg, Jim Dine, Francesco Clemente, & Alex Katz. Lots of color reproductions. 7. _The Objectivist Nexus: Essays in Cultural Poetics_, ed Rachel Blau DuPlessis and Peter Quartermain, U Alabama, $24.95. Charles Altieri, Burton Hatlen, Ming-Qian Ma, Alan Golding, Eric Homberger, John Seed, Michael Heller, Peter Middleton, Norman Finkelstein, Charles Bernstein, Peter Nicholls, Robert Franciosi, Andrew Crozier, Stephen Fredman, & Yves di Manno. 8. _Medieval_, Steven Farmer, Krupskaya, $9. "my name is Sergio and I am destined for economic ruin" 9. _Last Instance_, Dan Farrell, Krupskaya, $9. "So consciousness is not as much as its appurtenances. This is the last gong I will ever bong on on on on on." 10. _Fracas_, Liz Fodaski, Krupskaya, $9. "let x = o. / we still have too many constants / see dangle, see ding." 11. _came like it went_, Greg Fuchs, Buck Downs Books, $10.95. "Be the first/ to bring the baron home tonight; / beat the baron, / slay the baron, / eat the baron." 12. _The Germ #3_, ed Macgregor Card & Andrew Maxwell, $6. 13. _Too Much Johnson_, Michael Gizzi, The Figures, $8. "I resign from mouthwatering / and zigzagging which seems / to me an apocalyptic entre / nous in the buff" 14. _Rocks on a Platter_, Barbara Guest, Wesleyan, $12.95. "Is the pear-shaped manuscript // endangered? // Alas, its honied drip. // The honied drip." 15. _at. least._, P. Inman, Krupskaya, $9. "someone's, ravel, / undermined, / about, things, / the, walk, i, / lay, through, / as, nothing, / to, a, setting" 16. _Patzcuaro_, Joanne Kyger, Blu Millennium, $8. "Give me a word like / 'bathtub' born out / of the stunning void / of a moment / before when all registered / as 'ocean'." 17. _The Tales of Horror_, Laura Mullen, Kelsey St, $12. "the words will never reach anyone, or" 18. _Charles Olson and Frances Bolderoff: A Modern Correspondence_, ed . Ralph Maud & Sharon Thesen, Wesleyan, $24.95. "now man with a long face cannot quite pull off any more of these god inventions" 19. _Rhizome 3_, ed. Standard Schaefer & Evan Calbi, $10. 20. _The Public World / Syntactically Impermanence_, Leslie Scalapino, Wesleyan, $17.95. Essays, including "The Radical Nature of Experience," "The Canon," "Silence and Sound/Text," "The Recovery of the Public World," "The Weatherman Turns Himself In," and "Friendship." 21. _The Tablets_, Armand Schwerner, National Poetry Foundation, $19.95 (includes CD). "ok freki ok freki ok freki ok freki ok freki" 22. _Avant Gardening: Ecological Struggle in the City & the World_, ed Peter Lamborn Wilson & Bill Weinberg, Autonomedia, $8. Bernadette Cozort, Bernadette Mayer, Sarah Ferguson, Carmelo Ruiz, Lyx Ish, John Wright, Miekal And, Jack Collom, & Joe Hollis. Some bestsellas: _Selected Writings Volume 2_, Walter Benjamin, $37.50. _Pamela: A Novel_, Pamela Lu, $12.95. _Girls on the Run_, John Ashbery, $20. _Midwinter Day_, Bernadette Mayer, $12.95. _Stealer's Wheel_, Chris Stroffolino, $12.95. _Protective Immediacy_, Rod Smith, $9.95. _Pierce-Arrow_, Susan Howe, $14.95. _Overtime: Selected Poems_, Philip Whalen, $16.95. _Polyverse_, Lee Ann Brown, $11.95. _My Way: Speeches and Poems_, Charles Bernstein, $18. _Sight_, Lyn Hejinian & Leslie Scalapino, $12. _Dark_, Hoa Nguyen, $7. _Meadow_, Tom Raworth, $7. _New Time_, Leslie Scalapino, $11.95. _Daybook of a Virtual Poet_, Robert Creeley, $12. _Tales of Murasaki & Other Poems_, Martine Bellen, $10.95. Poetics folks receive free shipping on orders of more than $20. Free shipping + 10% discount on orders of more than $30. There are two ways to order. 1. E-mail your order to aerialedge@aol.com with your address & we will bill you with the books. or 2. via credit card-- you may call us at 202 965 5200 or e-mail aerialedge@aol.com w/ yr add, order, & card # & we will send a receipt with the books. We must charge shipping for orders out of the US. Bridge Street Books, 2814 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20007. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 8 Aug 1999 17:51:49 -0400 Reply-To: levitsk@ibm.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: R Democracy Subject: Re: Where's Boston? Where's Boston's Poets? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Tisa, Was great to read your piece and as well see John Keene mentioned in your list. I was blown away by his memoir/novel _Annotations_ published by New Directions (I believe at the Outwrite conference he said he was the second African American published by ND in its history--the other Bob Kaufman). I looked him up and he has an excellent website with cool on line poetry innovation: http://pages.nyu.edu/~jrk3150/poem.html but I guess he hasn't been in Boston for a while. --RDL ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1999 12:46:32 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: Propjet #2 / Molina MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit had to reformat this message. Chris -- Date: Sun, 08 Aug 1999 23:16:35 -0500 From: Joanne Molina Subject: PROPJET #2 Heather Fuller's EYESHOT PROPJET is pleased to announce the publication of Heather Fuller's chapbook: EYESHOT If you haven't heard of the most fabulous Heather Fuller: Heather Fuller is the author of the poetry collection, perhaps this is a rescue fantasy (Edge Books, 1997), a poetry chapbook, beggar (Situation, 1998), and a forthcoming play, Madonna Fatigue (Meow Press, 1999), and a forthcoming poetry collection, C Ration Dog & Pony (Like Books, 1999). Her essays, plays, and poetry have appeared in Chain, the minnesota review, Phoebe, So to Speak, two girls review, Combo, Membrane, Articulate, Poetry New York, and elsewhere. She resides in D.C., where she edits poetry and book reviews for the washington review. If you are interested in purchasing a copy of her chapbook, EYESHOT, please contact Joanne Molina at molinaj@ibm.net or at: PROPJET Joanne Moilina 4105 North Bernard #2F Chicago, IL 60618 The PROPJET chapbook series is edited and published by Joanne Molina. The first issue, Jefferson Hansen's SPINNING DOCTORS, is also still available for $3 a copy. A year's subscription is $10 and there are three chapbooks published per year. PROPJET #3 will feature the wonderful work of Sherry Brennan. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1999 01:53:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: + + MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII + + ___ _____ _ |_ _| ___| _ _ ___ _ _ __| | ___ | || |_ | | | |/ _ \| | | | / _` |/ _ \ | || _| | |_| | (_) | |_| | | (_| | (_) | |___|_| \__, |\___/ \__,_| \__,_|\___/ |___/ _ _ _ _ _ __ ___ __ _ __| | | |_| |__ (_)___ | '__/ _ \/ _` |/ _` | | __| '_ \| / __| | | | __/ (_| | (_| | | |_| | | | \__ \ |_| \___|\__,_|\__,_| \__|_| |_|_|___/ _ _ _ ___ _ _ _ __ __ _____ _ __ ___ | |__ | | | |/ _ \| | | | '__| \ \ /\ / / _ \| '_ ` _ \| '_ \ | |_| | (_) | |_| | | \ V V / (_) | | | | | | |_) | \__, |\___/ \__,_|_| \_/\_/ \___/|_| |_| |_|_.__/ |___/ _ _ | |_ __ _| | _____ ___ _ _ _ __ _ __ ___ ___ _ __ ___ | __/ _` | |/ / _ \/ __| | | | | '_ \ | '__/ _ \ / _ \| '_ ` _ \ | || (_| | < __/\__ \ | |_| | |_) | | | | (_) | (_) | | | | | | \__\__,_|_|\_\___||___/ \__,_| .__/ |_| \___/ \___/|_| |_| |_| |_| _ __ __ _ _ __ __| | / / ___ _ __ __ _ _ __ / _` | '_ \ / _` | / / / _ \| '__| / _` | '_ \ | (_| | | | | (_| | / / | (_) | | | (_| | | | | \__,_|_| |_|\__,_| /_/ \___/|_| \__,_|_| |_| _ _ _____ _| |_ ___ _ __ ___(_) ___ _ __ / _ \ \/ / __/ _ \ '_ \/ __| |/ _ \| '_ \ | __/> <| || __/ | | \__ \ | (_) | | | | \___/_/\_\\__\___|_| |_|___/_|\___/|_| |_| _ _ __ _ _ __ __| | _ _ ___ _ _ | | ___ __ _____ __ / _` | '_ \ / _` | | | | |/ _ \| | | | | |/ / '_ \ / _ \ \ /\ / / | (_| | | | | (_| | | |_| | (_) | |_| | | <| | | | (_) \ V V / \__,_|_| |_|\__,_| \__, |\___/ \__,_| |_|\_\_| |_|\___/ \_/\_/ |___/ _ _ _ _ _ | |_| |__ ___ _ __ ___ __ _| |_ ___ _ __(_) __ _| | | __| '_ \ / _ \ | '_ ` _ \ / _` | __/ _ \ '__| |/ _` | | | |_| | | | __/ | | | | | | (_| | || __/ | | | (_| | | \__|_| |_|\___| |_| |_| |_|\__,_|\__\___|_| |_|\__,_|_| _ _ __ _____ _ __| | __| | \ \ /\ / / _ \| '__| |/ _` | \ V V / (_) | | | | (_| | \_/\_/ \___/|_| |_|\__,_| _ | |__ __ _ ___ _ __ ___ _ _ ___ ___ | '_ \ / _` / __| | '_ \ / _ \ | | | / __|/ _ \ | | | | (_| \__ \ | | | | (_) | | |_| \__ \ __/ |_| |_|\__,_|___/ |_| |_|\___/ \__,_|___/\___| __ / _| ___ _ __ _ _ ___ | |_ / _ \| '__| | | | / __| | _| (_) | | | |_| \__ \ |_| \___/|_| \__,_|___/ for ussh: IF: not found $ $ sh: takes: not found $ sh: and: not found $ sh: extension: not found $ sh: and: not found $ sh: the: not found $ sh: world: not found $ sh: has: not found $ _ |_| |___/ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ |___/ _ _ $ $ sh: takes: not found $ sh: and: not found $ sh: and: not found $ sh: extension: not found $ sh: has: not found $ $ sh: the: not found $ sh: world: not found for ussh: IF: not found \_/\_/ \___/|_| |_|\__,_| __ __ _ _ __ __| | / / ___ _ __ __ _ _ __ __ _ _ __ __| | _ _ ___ _ _ | | ___ __ _____ __ _____ _| |_ ___ _ __ ___(_) ___ _ __ / _ \ \/ / __/ _ \ '_ \/ __| |/ _ \| '_ \ / _` | '_ \ / _` | / / / _ \| '__| / _` | '_ \ / _` | '_ \ / _` | | | | |/ _ \| | | | | |/ / '_ \ / _ \ \ /\ / / / _| ___ _ __ _ _ ___ \ V V / (_) | | | | (_| | \__, |\___/ \__,_|_| \_/\_/ \___/|_| |_| |_|_.__/ \__,_|_| |_|\__,_| \__, |\___/ \__,_| |_|\_\_| |_|\___/ \_/\_/ \__,_|_| |_|\__,_| /_/ \___/|_| \__,_|_| |_| \__\__,_|_|\_\___||___/ \__,_| .__/ |_| \___/ \___/|_| |_| |_| \___/_/\_\\__\___|_| |_|___/_|\___/|_| |_| \__|_| |_|\___| |_| |_| |_|\__,_|\__\___|_| |_|\__,_|_| _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ___ _ _ _ __ __ _____ _ __ ___ | |__ _ __ ___ __ _ __| | | |_| |__ (_)___ ___ _____ _ | || _| | |_| | (_) | |_| | | (_| | (_) | | || |_ | | | |/ _ \| | | | / _` |/ _ \ |___/ \ \ /\ / / _ \| '__| |/ _` | __ _____ _ __| | __| | _______________________________________________________________________ | __/> <| || __/ | | \__ \ | (_) | | | | | _| (_) | | | |_| \__ \ | '_ \ / _` / __| | '_ \ / _ \ | | | / __|/ _ \ | '__/ _ \/ _` |/ _` | | __| '_ \| / __| | (_| | | | | (_| | / / | (_) | | | (_| | | | | | (_| | | | | (_| | | |_| | (_) | |_| | | <| | | | (_) \ V V / | __/ _` | |/ / _ \/ __| | | | | '_ \ | '__/ _ \ / _ \| '_ ` _ \ | __| '_ \ / _ \ | '_ ` _ \ / _` | __/ _ \ '__| |/ _` | | | | | __/ (_| | (_| | | |_| | | | \__ \ | | | | (_| \__ \ | | | | (_) | | |_| \__ \ __/ | | | |/ _ \| | | | '__| \ \ /\ / / _ \| '_ ` _ \| '_ \ | |_ / _ \| '__| | | | / __| | |_ __ _| | _____ ___ _ _ _ __ _ __ ___ ___ _ __ ___ | |__ __ _ ___ _ __ ___ _ _ ___ ___ | |_| | (_) | |_| | | \ V V / (_) | | | | | | |_) | | |_| | | | __/ | | | | | | (_| | || __/ | | | (_| | | | |_| |__ ___ _ __ ___ __ _| |_ ___ _ __(_) __ _| | | || (_| | < __/\__ \ | |_| | |_) | | | | (_) | (_) | | | | | | |_ _| ___| _ _ ___ _ _ __| | ___ |___|_| \__, |\___/ \__,_| \__,_|\___/ |_| \___/|_| \__,_|___/ |_| \___|\__,_|\__,_| \__|_| |_|_|___/ |_| |_|\__,_|___/ |_| |_|\___/ \__,_|___/\___| _______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1999 09:58:07 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: A H Bramhall Subject: Right About Here (Community Standards) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit it was quite a day. the energy transmitted much of value. the miners rested at home, a much-needed day off. tomorrow, the effort would continue. the thing would be exposed, like it or not. some damn troubadour will expect reward, silly painters will thrill at the latest product of their imagination, and seeds will be sown, for whatever worth of any of that. obnoxious as all that might be, still, you can't blame them their forward district presence. they have the haven and they know how to use it. that's why sitting at the machine feels so good. simply wielding the pickaxe in knowledgeable grace completes the picture of perfect focus. we aren't children, none of us are, but we have grit. that grit has been earned, from scraping the ore and fighting tooth and nail with the elemental silliness of the mined Earth. no one is keeping records of the business that keeps on, no matter the weather. today is just a moon phase in a stream of varying lights. that's no joke and could prove important, if anyone manages to read the book. first the book must be sent with viscous force to the proper authority and let the wind direct it fortunately to its destined final nest. and all this time we will have struggled out of torn coats to give the pauper standing in the left part of our dream room. what are you going to say when the miners waken, strengthened by resolve and flushed to get back to work? you will praise, you will encourage, you will try to carry on. there's no message here, it's just the sensible etiquette of a far from impossible situation. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1999 10:40:40 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gerald Schwartz Subject: Re: Talk's Riding MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit FURTHER SHILLING FOR TINA BROWN: Riding HERSELF To "read TALK" is a familiar expression. The experience of reading TALK differs from that of knowing a fact. The thing known, in this case LAURA RIDING, exists -- once known as a component of one's own working equipment, as something with which one thinks. A Laura Riding is one's own Laura Riding. It is also a fixture of common lore of rational distinctions of tried mental workability. There is no issue as to TALK and LAURA RIDING, from the linguistic point of view, except in regard to knowledge: the knowledge of Laura Riding is differently constituted from that of the knowledge of Laura Riding. shillingly, Gerald ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1999 12:14:32 -0400 Reply-To: levitsk@ibm.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: R Democracy Subject: Re: Reading Announcement (please circulate) Comments: To: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM, tisa@SIRIUS.COM, Sue_bers@msn.com, sfmarlow@mindspring.com, shana@bway.net, sklevin@aecom.yu.edu, rgladman@sfaids.ucsf.edu, DioNicer@aol.com, prapra@aol.com, mbpratt@earthlink.net, mrrrwrm@ibm.net, macape@bway.net, PoChile@aol.com, mdurand@SPRYNET.COM, mzurawsk@STERN.NYU.EDU, lesneel@aol.com, LCagan@people-link.com, leeann@ferro-luzzi.org, llnuss@mindspring.com, Jon.Nalley@TFN.com, jocelyn@sfdu.edu, elizabeth.shipley@stmartins.com, Easter8@aol.com, booglit@HOTMAIL.COM, verde@people-link.com, hivplusacd@aol.com, cbh207@is6.nyu.edu, bluestocking@jps.net, a.waldman@mindspring.com, BetsyAndrews@yahoo.com, ARealuyo@aol.com, sondheim@panix.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Announcing Poetry Reading Series at Women's Bookstore!!! Akilah Oliver (the she said dialogues, Smokehouse Press, 1999) and Marcella Durand (City of Ports, Situations, 1999) will inaugurate the BELLADONNA* Reading Series, curated by Rachel Levitsky. At the Bluestockings Women's Bookstore at 172 Allen Street between Rivington and Stanton on the Lower East Side of Manhattan Thursday, August 26 at 9:00 pm. Contact (212) 777-6028 for info. (There will be 15 minutes provided for open readers). >From The She Said Monologues (Akilah Oliver) we forget, she said i want the metaphor clear. i want to clarify. you get what you want if you want it hard enough. bullshit. take it like truth. gurus & gods. tender buttons. i wanted to say that. weight. if we wasn't at least half spirit why do we always betrying to fly. angels in distress. jamborees in the morning. slick taste of cocaine chorusing down throats. i never saw a clown i liked. subterranean train stations. gum & cigarettes & strange candy wrappers.men.eyeing the foreigner.me.all the time i hear pieces of st. louis. somewhere in the clouds. carly simon. clouds in my coffee. a pop reference. why pretend we hear plato speak. open wide. send the soldiers out to pasture.ice t. snicker his high yellow niggah badder than the best don't fuck with me stance. champions we be. waves recede. how come we don't make anymore mythology. in finland once all night the sky was day. well why wouldn't you, she said discard the proud robe of victim. sky is whistling. oh the little earthlings, some other synonym for free. move. the beat of another drummer. shhhh. we're having a brilliant time. sexual acts performed in the town square. town mall. woo the angels. only a woman can empty so fully. the beauty that is the pain's opposite. honey. inhale their air. cover my eyes. silly bandit. this is the way i want you to kiss me from City of Ports (Marcella Durand:) City of Ports 12 Inheritance of a paper found scrolled within the hollow column of a demolished synagogue which was first a hotel for former loan arks and transient architects from whom the lobby benefited with their unorthodox payment of restringing lamps, ducting load-bearers, dying carpets and spreading rugs over weakened damp areas of the plywood styrofoam floors which sagged like mattresses under the coming and goings of many feet like thunder rolls through the insulated city. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1999 09:46:33 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tosh Subject: Re: Talk's Riding Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" TALK Magazine is Tina Brown's (New Yorker/Vanity Fair) new publication. ----------------- Tosh Berman TamTam Books ------------------ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 09:24:07 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: riding poem In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" David, Wonderful poem you pulled out of this and very funny, as always, intro! thanks! Charles ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1999 13:17:13 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Linda Russo Subject: Re: Where's Boston? Where's Boston's Poets? In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit . . . about 459 miles east of buffalo. Tisa, you hit it right on the head for me here, in re The Dark Room Collective being an "accessible alternative" : -- There's a lot going on in Boston any day of the week, and I went to a lot when I lived there for several years, but never found a scene that really compelled me -- so were they really accessible? They were *there,* some more open than others. (I found DR, btw, one of the more open bunch of people, compelled as I was to on one occassion read when I hadn't brought any poems with me, and went up extempore to re-poem what I thought I'd written and had by memory.) One thing Aaron's done is to increase accessibility both for the Boston scene(s) and the people who levitate (back) towards them in their yet-another sweep through the area. The conversations that are spinning off _here_ I take as a sign of that accessibility (not to mention that my priviness to them a sign of what this list makes accessible). The forum's got to exist to address concerns (such as Jacques'), to find/make direction(s). * * * ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1999 13:48:23 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R. Drake" Subject: Re: Help! In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19990806165649.01295d10@mail.earthlink.net> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii i'm among the missing? an honor, i guess: r.drake@popmail.csuohio.edu or work rdrake@completemedia.com how things? lbd >Somebody please backchannel phone numbers and/or email addresses for >Nathaniel Mackey, Roberto Tejada and Luigi Bob Drake. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1999 10:56:28 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: New Books Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Here's Fred Muratori's review of Armand Schwerner's _Selected Shorter Poems_ and _The Tablets_ in the August _Library Journal_. >Schwerner (1927-99) was a maximalist, a poet of expansive aims and encyclopedic learning whose interest in anthropology and religion fueled a poetry that explored the very nature of civilization. The simultaneous publication of his lifelong project, _The Tablets_, and a generous selection of shorter poems, most out of print, is likely to fix his position among major postwar experimenters such as Robert Duncan, Louis Zukofsky, and Charles Olson, with whom he has been compared. _The Tablets_ is the fictional restoration and analysis of an ancient Sumerian text, complete with scholarly notes, pictographs, debatable translations, and missing or lost passages. More than that, it's a huge vessel into which the poet deposits aspects of his own identity while probing the process of epistemology itself. In a manner similar to that of the late avant-garde Canadian poet bpNichol, Schwerner laces his mock-academic pursuit with humor, invention, and an almost electric opassion. The same qualities are found in Schwerner's lyric meditations, as the poet attempts to articulate how the "variegated mystery" of the self can achieve synthesis, becoming "the one mind in orchestration." Again, he draws on a "wild spectrum" of sources--Eskimo poetry, Buddhism, Zuni myths--but frequently allows his playful sense of language ("How remunerative/ to be eleemosynary") to lighten the oracular load. Earnest and eccentric, stuffed with enough puzzles to keep poetry readers and scholars delightfully busy through the next century, these two volumes are essential for all libraries with substantial poetry collections. > _Selected Shorter Poems_, at 144 pages, contains Armand's own selection of two-thirds of his non-Tablets poetry, including poems that have only appeared in periodicals. Here's the review, anonymous as usual, of Mervyn Taylor's _The Goat_ from July's _Publishers Weekly_. >Taylor's New York poems comprise a roughly virtuosic series of contemporary vignettes laced with apocalpse; they are attuned to the pain in all desire and the beauty in decay--not unlike Lorca's explorations of the city. Beginning "one of those nights/ when the intersection is crazy/ with cars," and moving swiftly through casual, but angst-tinged observation--Taylor's second collection portrays people on the economic and social fringes, from the "Old Soldier in the Park" ("his white hair flying/ against the green,/ a bird out of formation") to the pathetic story of "Sleepy," about a mother who spots her son's face on a wanted poster. Sometimes Taylor has a lighter touch ("the snow has no philosophy/ but to fall for two days straight"), but he can also cross the line into overstatement, as in his poem "A Witness," dedicated to the then-U.S. poet laureate Robert Hass: "He had undertaken the job as caretaker/ to hios country's eloquence, in charge/ of its rhymes, its superstitions/ in the year of the most stars pitched/ most children abused." Finding no easy answers, yet never letting his lyrical and painterly gifts spiral off into irrelevance, Taylor remains true to his desire to get his world on paper, a world of New York and beyond that continues to be inflected by his Trinidadian roots: "He feels for a taste/ of his own flesh, he can smell it all the time,/ cooking in the curry of a human dream." > I'll only add that about half the poems are set in Trinidad. All three books are available from SPD. _Selected Shorter Poems_ and _The Goat_ can also be ordered direct from Junction Press, PO Box 40537, San Diego CA 92164, email junction@earthlink.net. Armand Schwerner, _Selected Shorter Poems_, ISBN 1-881523-11-X, 144 pp., $16.00 Mervyn Taylor, _The Goat_, ISBN 1-881523-10-1, 96 pp., $11.00 Shipping costs: add $2.00 for up to three books. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1999 15:50:34 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: Symposium on the Work of William Bronk In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Call for papers: A symposium on the work of William Bronk will be held November 13-14, 1999 at the Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ. Among the many critics and poets who will be making presentations are David Clippinger, Joseph Conte, Joseph Donahue, John Ernest, Norman Finkelstein, Lyman Gilmore, Burton Hatlen, S.M. Kearns, Burt Kimmelman, David Landrey, Geoffrey O'Brien, Michael Perkins, Paul Pines, Leonard Schwartz, and Henry Weinfield If you would like to participate and have not yet contacted the symposium directors (David Clippinger, Burt Kimmelman, and Edward Foster) please contact Edward Foster at talismaned@aol.com, at (201) 938-0698, or at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ 07030. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1999 15:25:33 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Maria Damon (Maria Damon)" Subject: Re: Where's Boston? Where's Boston's Poets? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" great post, tisa; "alternative" does tend to mean a certain alternative, namely, an "experimental" style. like "avant garde." i've tried to argue that "vanguard" could/should usefully be redefined as "coming from the margins," but to no avail. i get the tautological critique: what about pound? what about olson? he's avantgarde but not socially marginal. in vain i respond that that's not the vanguard i'm talking about --that for me, it means "relative to the center"--any center, not just aesthetic. there's a social vanguard. how 'bout a Darkroom Collective reunion at the next BoPoCo? At 7:03 AM 8/6/99, Tisa Bryant wrote: >Hello. > >I'd like to offer a few, okay several (dis)jointed and rambling comments. > >I'm a Boston native, living here for 4 years in SF (that's San Francisco). > >Certainly my eyes opened wide to hear about an "alternative" poetry >conference in Boston, the 2nd annual, no less. Wish I could've been there; >wish this had happened 10 years ago. But then, I'm sure it had, and then, >I know it did again. And again. And will. So. > >Regionalism is just that. Boston always gets short shrift in the >competition for center of the universe, and really, so what? Community >happens wherever you are, and so does poetry. Schools or centers of any >kind of thought/production often produce repetitions. What's been exciting >has been to know that there's all kinds of poetry going on, everywhere, all >the time. I just need to speak more languages, within the American tree of >words, and with the roots of other countries. >Someone asked who among the Alt Bo Po line up was actually "from" Boston. >There was some brave poet there who read with "heart"? Does that mean our >notorious honking accent? (I'm laughing here.) > >(I, like Bo Po's organizer, Kiely, am yet another "uncredentialed" >independent doing whatever I want or feels needs to be done, on my own >terms, and with help from friends. This "alternative" way of doing things >is often collapsed into "activism", which is fine with me. And I think >this point warrants another conversation about what and whom is being >measured and legitimized, and by whom, with what, what yield? Academic >elitism, romanticized movements, idolatry, clout and influence indeed.) > >Boston is a big college town with a 5% sales tax and a hard core local >populace perpetually chafing against transient intellectuals and their >overwhelmingly khaki influence on the city's personality, or lack thereof, >as well as more of the same between working classes and Boston Brahmins, >between races with no money, etc. Almost like anywhere, but with a >particularly icy vengeance. Maria Damon, you may recall that miserable >failure, the "Where's Boston" campaign from about 25 years ago, which was >just as much about the "who" and the "what" as the "where". > >So I think I understand the ambivalences of the city, and the impact it can >have on the writing of those who come or stay. Especially in the shadow of >NYC, or in contrast to the New West, or That Other Happening Country Up >North, or in light of internalized anguish for having never been the >"center" of a "movement" of innovative note, for all its heavily endowed >schools, not to mentioned its fabled unsophisticated accent. So many >rulers to break. What does this really have to do with what the writers at >the Alt Bo Po conference presented? Nothing, really. The organizer made >some choices, the readers made some choices, interpretation was open, >everybody went home with more than they brought, and there it is. > >(Thanks, Jack Kimball, for sharing with us your what you saw and heard at >the conference. I really felt like I was there during the Emily Dickinson >parade.) > >For all of my literary life in Boston, I was the only Boston native in my >community, which was at that time The Dark Room Writers Collective, for >nearly 10 years. There were about 15 of us at the best of times. > >We thought we were an alternative, simply for providing workshops and a >reading series that featured writers of African descent, and we were. On >our schedules were Erica Hunt, Julie Patton, Nathaniel Mackey, Ntozake >Shange, John Keene (DR member), Sam Delany, Dolores Kendrick, Kofi Natambu, >Kevin Young (DR member) David Henderson, Harryette Mullen, myself, and a >particularly memorable tribute to Bob Kaufman in 1990. > >(And while I'm glad Prageeta Sharma and Will Alexander were in the house at >this Alt Bo Po, yeah? Alternative for whom is another question. I >forwarded the event announcement to my friends back East; none of them had >even heard of it. Who's counting who's missing? What makes an >alternative? Where/when does the audience come in? etc. etc. ) > >Anyway, writers who wouldn't necessarily be considered "avant-garde" were >also on the DR schedule. My point? Just that. It was an accessible >alternative (yes, Jacques, the "slipperiness of the term") to what >Harvard/BU/MIT/Northeastern offered (the series was in our home, and had no >support/connection to any of them; we paid out of pocket for everything >with our dues), and made a difference, to those in the know and those just >getting to it. What did it say "about" "Boston" poets? Nothing, really, >or something predictably unsavory, since when someone said something >"about" "Boston" poets, they didn't, and rightly couldn't, mean "us" (well, >excluding me, I guess). >Everyone was from everywhere, and would go back out "there" at some point >to get more of what they brought with them. About innovation and >experimentation? That everyone, at some time or another, did a little >something, some more often than others, it was all about seeing the >threads, potential of the past, and the dangers of the monolithic. About >the scene? Well, some deserved praise unfortunately frequented by the word >"renaissance", but praise nonetheless (and sure enough, it's over now). >And nice, donation bearing crowds. It was a lot of work, very trying, and >a lot of fun. > >Was Boston turned into a colored writers' mecca? (Kevin Killian, I'm >thinking about what you said re: the Boston/Vancouver connection). No, it >most certainly wasn't. Sometimes there's no overcoming history. (Damn Red >Sox!) > >Will it turn itself into what Vancouver has? Who's to say it hasn't? But >I must say, if it wasn't for Harvard/MIT/BU, (and occasional treks to >UMass/Amherst and, gasp! Yale) I would never have seen in such numbers the >experimentalists (my definition) I did see over the years there, actually, >for all their conservatism and misapprehension of the term "outreach". > >What was happening then in the DR was necessary but not perfect, as the Bo >Po conference certainly was and was not, and other things will be and not >be. > >Surely, as one of the few "avant-garde" writers within the Collective, I >certainly wanted more from our scheduling and focus, but was glad to get >what I got and give what I gave. > >Tisa > > >************************************************************ >Today we declare: >First, they are living in a Nono form; >Second, they are Nono lives; >Third, they make us feel Nono; >Fourth, they make us become Nono; >Fifth, we Nono. > Lan Ma > "Manifesto of Nonoism" > (Chendu, China, May 4, 1986) >*************************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1999 12:05:07 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume" Subject: Re: Talking about Talk MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain > Dear Maria, > > TALK is the new magazine edited by Tina Brown -- of The New Yorker & > Vanity Fair. She was lured away from NY to start it at the behest of > Harvey Weinstein, who runs Miramax (now owned by Disney). The idea was, ho > hum, synergy -- that is, use the magazine as a base from which to derive > possible film projects. Seems a damned expensive way to go about it. When > I worked in Hollywood we just called it development and did the bloody > footwork ourselves. Oh well. The first issue features on its cover photos > of Jackie O and Gwnyeth Paltrow in bondage gear. That is -- it's daring in > all the old worn out ways. I predict it will run in the red forever and > fold in 18-36 months. > > Patrick ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 09:06:44 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tony Green Subject: Re: Talk's Riding MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit CNN coverage of launch of TALK was on breakfast TV in NZ this a.m. Funny, no mention of Laura Riding. The names of big corporations blurred into promo fireworks & the Statue of Liberty. Tony Green ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1999 17:07:46 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Kirschenbaum Subject: Ethnicity and the BoPoFest Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed The more important question in discussing the BoPoFest, each of which I participated in, is ethnic inclusion. I haven’t done a scan like Dan Bouchard did (ie: Boston, non-Boston) as per ethnicity, but the ratio has to be -- at best -- in the 5:1 range. I think it's like the cafeteria at college, where everyone sits in their clicks, be it by color, ethnicity, sports team, yearbook or pep squad. The idea of the other is so frightening, and the desire to learn of it so far-fetched, that people - most anyhow - stick within their wee community. I expect it of the masses, but not from the creative types, especially within the confines of this event. I think Aaron, as any organizer/editor does, myself included, represents the work to which he has been exposed. When I mentioned getting Quincy Troupe for next year’s conference, Aaron said, "Who?" But, Aaron is receptive to new ideas, either asking for work by the recommended author or digging it up himself, to see if it fits with his aesthetic for the conference - though it's more a feel than a, ugh, aesthetic. To me, he said the former, so next time I see him I'll pass him my copy of “Avalanche” or “Weather Reports.” Be Good, David _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1999 15:22:30 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: peter neufeld Subject: Would someone MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii please backchannel contact info (preferably e-mails) for Parjeeta Sharma and the coordinator of Zinc Bar readings. Thanks. Pete Neufeld _____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Bid and sell for free at http://auctions.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1999 18:28:14 -0400 Reply-To: levitsk@ibm.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: R Democracy Subject: Re: Reading Announcement (please circulate) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Errata! Akilah's book is published by Smokeproof, not that mistake I had earlier. > > Announcing Poetry Reading Series at Women's Bookstore!!! > > Akilah Oliver (the she said dialogues, Smokeproof Press, 1999) and > Marcella Durand (City of Ports, Situations, 1999) will inaugurate the > BELLADONNA* Reading Series, curated by Rachel Levitsky. > > At the Bluestockings Women's Bookstore at 172 Allen Street > between Rivington and Stanton on the Lower East Side of Manhattan > Thursday, August 26 at 9:00 pm. > > Contact (212) 777-6028 for info. (There will be 15 minutes provided for > open readers). ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1999 19:50:45 -0400 Reply-To: levitsk@ibm.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: R Democracy Subject: could I borrow some sugar? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi all, Gee, I feel so suddenly present again. I need some emails and snailmails emails: Amy Sarah Carrol Jackie Woodson Erica Hunt Lyn Heginian Tracie Morris Gail Scott Erin Moure Laurie Price Snail: Kim Lyons thanks a million, Rachel ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1999 21:47:26 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lynn Miller Subject: TAN LEJOS HEMOS LLEGADO LOS ESCLAVOS! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit BLACK TAMBOURINE Because I felt the boss suspected I resembled what I saw I emptied those emotional outbursts, those tempests of passion, and made a mistake my first five minutes in the white world. I was shovelling horseshit the day they walked on the moon telling myself there must be good white people, with money and sensitive feelings, or had I been kept out of their world too long ever to become a real part of it? I longed to be among them, yet when among them I looked at them as if I were a million miles away. She gave me the ticket and I sat looking at the shadows on the screen. By imagining a place where everything was possible, I kept love alive in me, and got used to seeing the prostitutes sitting nude around their rooms, though I'd steal sidelong glances at them. Their nakedness startled me as would a blue vase or persian rug. I was learning new modes of behavior in how to live the Jim Crow, how to watch them, observe their every move, every expression, how to interpret what little was said, and how much they left unsaid. We went to the waterfront and sat on a knoll, watching the barges. "I just won't let you eat out of a can in my house," she said. (I was used to hunger and didn't need much to keep me alive.) I am one of those who tried to conceal their plantation origin from among the washerwomen who moaned and shouted hymns. The invitation said: "Tea and conversation. A spacious view." It was a harmless social gathering, or convocation of murderers. They did not attach to words the same meanings that I did. Richard Wright ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 9 Aug 1999 21:56:26 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rodrigo Toscano Subject: NYC Sublet Needed MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear Listees... Laura Elrick and I (Rodrigo Toscano) are looking for a one-bedroom apartment in New York City (all burroughs ok) -- permanent -- or sublet (4 or more months) (studio ok)...move in date anytime after September 15th... any info would be helpful! Rodrigo Toscano RT5LE9@aol.com 415 558-8767 (daytime) 415 282-5217 (nighttime) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 12:34:50 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: Lynn Miller's strong stuff MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Impressed and intrigued by Lynn Miller's pieces on the List of past couple or three weeks, a bit surprised no one else has commented. Very different and daring it seems to me. What seems new is how an over-drived analytical/historical bent exudes an odd and compelling lyricism, though that suggests too much that the latter is the byproduct of the former. Maybe it's the other way around, which would make it more interesting, actually. Whatever the case may be, I'm sure other people are noticing too. Keep it moving, Lynn Miller, whoever you are. Kent ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 18:48:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: A H Bramhall Subject: A Course Thru Any Boston MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit first off (if you're willing): explain how the facts could distort so easily. the latest tracking says easily definable community works against itself. it's so obvious. the endless pressures make facts funny. fielding questions day and night: what's that about? is jumble the tune of expectation? yes, for now, those edges will do. the hand holding makes circle: get it? a clue to your relief. container for the thing contained: get it? pattern forms on a hunch then the brittle twist which is absolute importance gains a voice. here's where the career begins (not that anyone listens), but don't be afraid or fall too quickly. you have wiggle room. you've seen the process exist in detail (it's all about you). caution can steam thru the neighbourhood, yelling ANY TRUCK like a banshee, because that's a belligerent image trying to clock a world speed record. appropriate what you need, no cops are around, you have a chance. you face open season on the New Whatever but why bother. too busy just building the cannon, and the shock of what it can kill and why. inside out but throw away your distress. it's a loveless climate unless you reach the end of the circle. that is, you hold hands. the friendly name for this is engagement. trickle down theories work with sensational ease and a hefty inventory. some day you'll look back and see that presence was charged, bigtime. now it's a matter of equal rights for equal pay, snappy phraseologies against the living dead. STRAIGHTEN UP, PROCESS SERVERS: the theory is bound to get a wake up call and you'll be pulled too. you like that framework, bleeding poems with an eye on the clock. being busy, you'll be happy with any advice. the point is to squeeze thru the narrows, leap over the latest log jam, ratchet up the concern levels and quickly churn the showdown. back and forth with community standards, the best cage you can imagine. that can't be the final note because kindness has to matter as a gravity well. and it will. Hell has been conveniently shaved of doubt but ignore that. the desperation begins outside the charmed circle before the map can be invented. that's why you need not get gussied up. the vocabulary has always been yours. what you choose to throw off proves what matters most. no musical phrase can blanket that. you can have your cannon now. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 18:40:53 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: Incorrect or incomplete address field found and ignored. From: derek beaulieu Subject: STANZAS #20 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit still available: STANZAS #20 Eulogistics - Victor Coleman issue - Toronto writer Vic d'Or is the original "mindless acid freaK", involved w/ so many things its hard to keep track, including the original Coach House Press & the current Coach House Books. his poetry books include LAPSED W.A.S.P., Stranger, Terrific at both Ends, SPEECH SUCKS & the day they stole the coach house press. Eulogistics is from The Exchange, Poems 1984-95, out any day now from The Eternal Network (A Division of Coach House Books - http://www.chbooks.com). STANZAS magazine, published at random in ottawa by above/ground press. edited by rob mclennan for long poems/sequences. distributed free, or $10 (canadian) for 5 issues. reads submissions constantly, up to 20 pages. next issue - Natalie Hanna -- poet/editor/publisher... ed. STANZAS mag & Written in the Skin (Insomniac) publisher, above/ground press...coordinator, the ottawa small press fair & Ontario rep, The League of Canadian Poets...snail-mail c/o rob mclennan, rr#1 maxville on k0c 1t0 * 3rd coll'n, Manitoba highway map (Broken Jaw) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 19:13:38 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re [2]: cut-ups Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 10:45 PM 8/6/99, Jacques Debrot wrote: >Apologies for the second note. I just wanted to add that, while connecting >the cut-ups to recent developments in Web technologies is certainly >legitimate, you'd also want to avoid the dangers of historical >de-contextualization. Burroughs's work emerged after all at a crucial >moment--along with Cage's & Ashbery's--when 60s artists were confronting >commodity culture really for the first time. Related issues such as the >homosexualization of the New York avant-garde, the conflicted reaction >against Abstract Expressionist culture, the initial & then-ongoing US >reception of Dada, as well as-- to the extent that this was being played out >on 2 continents--Burroughs's & Ashbery's relations with & attitudes toward, >for example, TEL QUEL, are all issues that, although they don't each have to >be considered in the context of your study, nonetheless give Burroughs's >cut-up method a specific rather than a merely analogical & general >significance. > >--jacques Jacques, I would be interested to hear what you feel connects the "homosexualization of the New York avant-garde" with cut-up technique.... (beyond the fact that some gay guys did it....) --Mark Prejsnar ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 22:54:16 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lynn Miller Subject: CONTEXT IS EVERYTHING MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Window above me. I don't remember reaching for them, watching was enough. It was not and never is. It occurs to Kleist to wonder whether the rumors that emanated from Mainz about this poet when we know that their morals consist in a secret and a few dull examples clapped in front to make a show and screen, and when we know that their "legitimacy" is the most unlawful of all lawlessness when we know this how could we not turn such a death against the enemies of Mr. Shelley, see this royal bedlam bigot range . . .=20 \\\\\\\ [+] /////// America. History. Prophecy. What have we learned. The memory of Malcolm at=20 the meatpackers=92 meeting, the local=92s last meeting: The Rank and File=20 Packinghouse Workers Conference, Austin, Minnesota, May 1-3, 1987. Rowenna=20 Moore, the gracious elder, keeper of his birthplace in Omaha. Her escort of=20 Black Muslims. When Connie Moore crowned her Honorary Member of Local P-9 an= d=20 gave her a bouquet of flowers, several of the union women wept. The making o= f=20 Black Revolutionaries. Increment of shrill isolation and vulnerability to=20 assassination. Hog pens and silos among church steeples puncturing the=20 village horizon like shared needles thrown away on a playground in East=20 Cleveland. The unorganized. The unemployed. 120 million working women and=20 men. The industrial unions. "I got my eyes on the ranks." The Beauty of Blac= k=20 Nationalism permeated the room, a single meeting room in what would never=20 again be an anonymous town in the midwest, a white town, white leaders who=20 had only for a memory when they decided to defy the odds and strike, the=20 legacy of King and the civil rights movement they needed to convince their=20 union that it was time to draw the line. The leaders were the ones who=20 emerged and took command, given command, because of their demonstrated=20 dedication to the course of action the membership had chosen. At the end of=20 the strike they were reduced to meeting in a single room, one room could hol= d=20 all of them all of whom had once numbered so many I couldn=92t believe the=20 strike had undone so many, 800 workers and their families and supporters who=20 overflowed the national guard armory to hear speakers at rallies to raise=20 money and confidence and consciousness as to why they were making this=20 sacrifice, their livelihoods, their lives, like the striking stewardesses=20 from TWA, and coal miners from the UMWA. You strike. You make a collective=20 decision and you cannot go back. There is no previous point in time to retur= n=20 to before you had to make as a membership that single, excruciating decision=20 to deny your labor and your labor power and go up against the production and=20 the profits of the company you have depended on for years. The town depends=20 on the company and the town doesn=92t want you to fight and won=92t support = any=20 fight that will take the money and maybe even the comapny out of town. The=20 town appears on the sidewalks and watches, silently, the frayed thread of=20 union members and their families and the =91out-of-towners=92 demonstrate do= wn=20 Main Street waving signs demanding Justice and Solidarity and declaring=20 hatred of GREED, an allegorical figure straight out of Piers Plowman, and yo= u=20 recognize with a shock that the folk are ancient, that there are recesses or=20 zones in the inner cities and in the countryside that the Media can=92t=20 penetrate, can=92t control. But the task of the Malcolm-Leninist on this=20 particular day was not to lie. Everyone else was lying to them, nodding thei= r=20 heads like the couple of DSA professors from the University of Minnesota=20 hanging around. The illusion that the strike was still alive needed to be=20 destroyed. He dispelled their fantasies about the boycott and an independent=20 union. My company, my union, my town, my job. You cannot be leaders because=20 who do you represent. You are only as strong as the people who march by your=20 side. What the road ahead looks like. All roads do not lead to this small=20 town. The worker-bolsheviks were there to challenge the few workers left to=20 think about the long road, and place the Strike within a perspective of clas= s=20 struggle in the United States. The high road of open class war will lead to=20 Pennsylvania Avenue. Nobody was going to disagree that the union bosses in=20 the UFCW weren=92t bums and needed to be kicked out and nobody was going to=20 argue that the International hadn=92t sold the Local down the river and even=20 authorized the use by the Company of scabs to break the strike. But what the=20 worker-bolsheviks put on the table was their argument that the strike was=20 over, and the fight just beginning. The task was to look past this decade an= d=20 into the next one, the last one, and into the next century. The strike broke=20 the rout of the labor movement driven home to every worker in this country a= t=20 the time of the intervention of Washington in declaring the air-traffic=20 controllers=92 strike at the start of the decade illegal. There wasn=92t any=20 boycott or any other magic trick that would bring back the 800 who went out=20 and stayed out for 18 months and made their union unlike any union the=20 working class has seen in 50 years. The North American Proletariat is not an=20 inert mass of millions of faces waiting to be led into battle, the coming=20 class war. We represent a plurality of potential. Dispel the illusion that=20 you can bring back those workers who marched down mainstreet behind you in=20 April and filled the local high school gym and the armory in January. They=20 were gone. They got new jobs in strange towns and went back to the work of=20 working to survive. You are the handful left, the circle elected at the=20 moment when the Company had made its ultimatums who could smell more than=20 your own private lives in the air, something your local still had from the=20 30s, like a tradition, or memory, or history: the victory of the sit-down=20 strike led by Frank Ellis (who came up through the IWW and it=92s not=20 impossible that he knew Jack Spicer=92s Dad). Nobody argued that. Nobody was=20 saying that this strike 50 years later hadn=92t been fought hard nor well. B= ut=20 it was time to insist on what we have been saying, that a war is fought on=20 many grounds, in many forms. A fight begins over a particular contract and=20 specific demands when the conditions inside the plant propel the membership=20 into risking their jobs for--that=92s just it, they don=92t know what it is=20 exactly for what they refuse to work under the same conditions or under wors= e=20 conditions, they only know that they are breaking some law written in stone.=20 The decision is political. It was time to dispel the illusion that some man=20 or woman out there in that fantasy land called TV is going to save you no=20 matter what their color is nor what their best intentions are they cannot an= d=20 will not save you. Their courts are not our courts, their cops are not our=20 cops, their laws are not our laws, their government is not our government. W= e=20 have nothing but what strength we gather by uniting. There is a crisis comin= g=20 that will shake this nation to its foundations and there are only two roads,=20 and we are at that crossroads here, in this room: there is the road we must=20 take and with as many as we can in alliance and solidarity and then there is=20 the road they have to offer that ends in a swamp of decayed cities, millions=20 of unemployed, homeless and hungry, divided by race riots, bread riots,=20 misery and despair. That=92s the road they hold out to us, and they want us=20 thinking all the time that it=92s called something like "opportunity knocks,= "=20 or "get your money while you can." The future they have to offer us is a=20 future too horrible to contemplate, horrible if you hate the waste of human=20 life. There is no value higher than the value of each and every human being=20 brought into the world. Every life contains an inestimable potential to=20 contribute to the future and progress of the human race. Every death, every=20 denial, every oppression is an act of barbarism, a savagery against all that=20 we have achieved in the thousands and tens of thousands of years since we=20 first emerged from caves and took up a stick or rock for a tool. The origin=20 of the human will to advance and develop and evolve into the infinite powers=20 of our species. WE MAKE OUR OWN HISTORY. There were four long tables in the=20 room. Maybe there were 30 workers in the room. Around the room on the walls=20 were the gigantic photographs from the strikes in the industry in the 30s an= d=20 then again in 48, the year of the last great strike wave. Cops and soldiers=20 in riot gear with guns facing the crowd of workers armed with pickets and=20 placards. The confrontation. This is where we will arrive. It is called=20 History Materialism. Enemy of abstract and preconceived ideas. Enemy of the=20 will to speculate about experience. Enemy of dreaming up a scheme and=20 imposing that scheme on reality: a specific and fluid process of situations=20 and contexts capable of combining and coming apart at any given stage or=20 phase. Enemy of mists and mirrors. I can see him speaking. The figure of the=20 Black Revolutionary that embodies and simultaneously transcends the=20 limitations of his origins in Malcolm X since he is something more, a new=20 power: a communist who has not existed before. The measure of his own=20 strength is found in an identity indissoluble from the identity of the cadre= ,=20 a unity of decisive intention, the myth of a unified purpose, or a unity of=20 purpose to take the State. No one can predict that. You can=92t isolate a=20 leader from the ranks who are one body, a single voice with multiple=20 inflections respective of personality, race, sex, age and social origins. A=20 single determination, a single will to build forces and join forces,=20 increasing forces, reading and readying for the relation of forces. There is=20 the recognition that you can win when your face dissolves into the faces of=20 the millions of others who see themselves as they must see their highest=20 image of themselves in the face of the communist that does not belong to any=20 individual, any leader, any hero. It is the face and fate of a common=20 humanity they will see when they give their lives.=20 \\\\\\\ [+] /////// We are led past the evidence of our own graves into thinking one day there will be justice. cf. William Cullen Bryant,=20 "the proud meaning of his look" pp. 252-53 in The Best Loved Poems=20 of the American People, 1936. see also: =20 1. "Oser inventir l'avenir: La parole de Thomas Sankara" PATHFINDER & L'HARMATTAN 5-7 rue de l'Ecole Polytechnique 75005 Paris 2. Ernesto Che Guevara: "Pasajes de la guerra revolucionaria: Congo" MONDADORI, 385.08013 Barcelona http://www.grijalbo.com =20 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 22:31:39 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: Philip Whalen reading in SF Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Michael Rothenberg has requested that I post this notice to the List. Which I do gladly! Celebratory reading from OVERTIME: SELECTED POEMS BY PHILIP WHALEN, will be held on Saturday, August 21, 1:00-3:00 PM at Cowell Theater, Ft. Mason, S.F.(car entrance to Ft. Mason Center is at Marina Blvd. and Buchanan). Guest readers will include Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Joanne Kyger, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure, Diane di Prima, Michael Rothenberg, David Meltzer, Clark Coolidge, Norman Fischer, Leslie Scalapino, Bill Berkson and Dave Haselwood. Philip Whalen will attend. Admission is free. db ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 11:40:31 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Lowther,John" Subject: FW: 7th Annual John Cage Birthday Tribute (NYC) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain > 7th Annual John Cage Birthday Tribute > Sunday, September 5th, 1999 > Video at 6pm, Reading at 7:30pm > @ Danspace / St. Mark's Church > 10th Street & 2nd Avenue > Admission is Free > > > For Immediate Release: > > > The 7th Annual John Cage Birthday Tribute will take place Sunday, > September 5th.This year's Tribute will be divided into two parts, a video > at 6pm and a reading at 7:30 pm. The event is presented in association > with > Danspace Project at St. Mark's Church. Admission is free. > > The video documentary, called "I Have Nothing to Say, and I Am > Saying > It," was produced by Vivian Perlis and Allan Miller. Made two years before > John Cage died, it contains priceless candid interviews interwoven with > clips > of him as he collects mushrooms, plays chess with Duchamp's wife, plays a > conch for Merce Cunningham, and directs a rehearsal for a radio ensemble > piece. For those who have never seen or heard John Cage, this video is a > wonderful introduction. For those who knew him, it is deeply moving. > > Afterwards at 7:30 pm, people who knew John Cage personally (many of > whom appear in the video) will read from Indeterminacy, a collection of > stories, each lasting exactly one minute regardless how many words are in > it > (so that the longer ones are read quickly and the shorter ones slowly). > Some > of the stories are printed in A Year from Monday (pp 133 to 140) under the > title "How to Pass, Kick, Fall and Run.4 "ther stories appear interspersed > in Silence. > > The video is one hour and the reading will run about ninety minutes. > Admission is free and all are welcome. For further information, send email > to cagereader@aol.com or call the Danspace Project at 674-8194. > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 10:27:28 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Eugene Ostashevsky Subject: PAUL LAFARGE, THU AT CLEAN WELL-LIGHTED Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hear Paul LaFarge read from his first novel, The Artist of the Missing (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1999), about itinerant judges, fantastic cameras, talking dolls, fish, the moon, and other topics of general interest. When: Thursday, August 12 @ 7:30 pm Where: A Clean Well-Lighted Place for Books 601 Van Ness San Francisco, CA 415.441.6670 "The visual details of Lafarge's novel are those of a stylish and somewhat morbid cartoon. We have entered a metaphysical world where illogic rules and whatever can be imagined is possible." (SF Chronicle) "A poised and playful homage to the storytelling impulse... explores the sort of shifting dreamscapes we encounter in Fellini, Borges and Lewis Carroll." (New York Newsday) "In The Artist of the Missing, San Francisco writer Paul LaFarge has built a city for love stories, a place as dimly remembered as a midnight telephone call, as broken and luminous as abandoned streets seenthrough a whiskey tumbler." (San Francisco Magazine) Find the Artist of the Missing on the Web at http://www.paraffin.org/artist/ 9X9X9X9X9X9X9X9X9X9X9X9X9X9X9X9X9X9X9X9X9X9X9 9X9 INDUSTRIES http://www.paraffin.org/nine/ nine@paraffin.org NINE MUSES NINE HEAVENLY SPHERES NINE ORDERS OF ANGELS NINE NAMES OF GOD AND AUGUSTINE AND A PEAR TREE ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 14:38:00 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Scharf, Michael (Cahners -NYC)" Subject: 19th C. Po&sie MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Would very much appreciate recommendations of (1) A one-volume anthology of canonical (now) 19th Century French poetry that has the French en face, and has, preferrably, plain prose translations? (If not, maybe non-rhyming etc. translations?) Out-of-print OK. (2) Favorite English/French en face editions of Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Mallarme, Laforgue. Thanks -Mike ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 19:59:24 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jennifer c Coleman Organization: MailCity (http://www.mailcity.lycos.com:80) Subject: Jacataqua Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I'm looking for information about "Jacataqua" -- essay by William Carlos Williams in __In the American Grain__. The piece touches on Aaron Burr's interaction during the Revolutionary War with the Abenaki Indians. WCW describes the woman Jacataqua as an Abenaki "sachem" or chief, but I can find no other historical reference to her -- anybody know if she existed? Thanks. Allison Cobb Get your FREE Email at http://mailcity.lycos.com Get your PERSONALIZED START PAGE at http://my.lycos.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 13:27:58 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Kelley Subject: Re: Ethnicity and the BoPoFest MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit > The more important question in discussing the BoPoFest, each of which I > participated in, is ethnic inclusion. I haven’t done a scan like Dan > Bouchard did (ie: Boston, non-Boston) as per ethnicity, but the ratio has to > be -- at best -- in the 5:1 range. > I think it's like the cafeteria at college, where everyone sits in their > clicks, be it by color, ethnicity, sports team, yearbook or pep squad. The > idea of the other is so frightening, and the desire to learn of it so > far-fetched, that people - most anyhow - stick within their wee community. I > expect it of the masses, but not from the creative types, especially within > the confines of this event. Being from Boston, this post caught my eye. I guess I'll say it flat out: Boston is the most racist place I've ever lived. Granted, I went from there to New York & on to San Francisco--so maybe Boston just looks bad by comparison. It all seemed quite civilized on the surface: the neighborhoods were segregated and everyone knew which lines not to cross. Maybe it's changed since I left 15 years ago, but I kind of doubt it. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 10:18:53 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Eugene Ostashevsky Subject: Brandon & Brendan at Caffe' Proust, Sunday at 9 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Poetry Reading at CAFFE' PROUST Sunday, August 15, 9PM Corner of BAKER & McALLISTER (2 bl. W of Divisadero, 4 bl. N. of Fell) =46ree The readers are: BRANDON DOWNING, editor of the first issue of _6,500_, the magazine of 9X9 Industries; BRENDAN LORBER, editor of _LUNGFULL!_ magazine (NYC) and co-host of the reading series at the Zinc Bar on Houston. The show is emceed by EUGENE OSTASHEVSKY, recently voted Most Mellifluous in a readers' poll held by the _REVUE DES EQUIVOQUES_. CAFFE' PROUST, hidden in a quiet redsidential neighborhood in the geographic heart of the city, combines exquisite foods of Italy, France and California, dollops of high culture, and a warm ambiance for reasonable prices. Fine wines, beer, coffees, dinners and desserts are served until 10pm. A sample of Brandon Downing's work: from 68 QUICK POEMS 1. A nice guy against A night sky 2. Then, in 1876 The eulogies and elegies =46inally defeated The odes THE SHIRT WEAPON So your hand lights up and you finally shoot yourself Your apparent worries become isolated, miscellany Whether you're the Macchu Picchu, whether I'm the Gulf My shirt is my weapon, my enemy tyranny XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX This reading brought to you by the Association Culturelle _Albatros_, member of the Crony Island of the Mind=81 Our mottoes are: 1) Prince des hu=E9es; 2) Gordo reiem Eugene Ostashevsky, General and Particular ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 03:51:44 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Jullich Subject: Farm Implements? -Reply Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain >>> John Tranter 07/30/99 09:16am >>> Jeffrey Jullich mentioned in his survey of Scandanavian poetry the line "He offers a smile, mild / as pick-axe handles a / mile wide which kindles/ the hide of rutabegas" As a long-time fan of John Ashbery, I'm a little concerned that the spelling of rutabagas is getting abraded here. We don't have them in Australia -- we have Swedes and turnips, but not rutabagas -- but that's no reason to become careless about our treasury of English spellings. Anyone care to comment? best, JT ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The OED lists 1799 as the earliest citation for "The new turnip, called roota baga". As "ruta-baga", it has appeared in poetry no less illustrious than Shelley's (Oed. Tyr. 1. 47): Hog-wash or grains, or ruta-bagas, none Has yet been ours since your reign begun later in poetry no less whimsical than Ogden Nash's 1951 "Family Reunion": We gobbled like pigs On rutabagas and salted figs. However, since ~brassica napus~ is also defined by the OED and the Encyclopedia Brittanica as "the Swedish turnip" (see http://www.eb.com:180/bol/topic?asmbly_id=15299 for a lovely illustration of ~brassica rapa~), the name is originally derived from a West Gotland dialect of Swedish, and perhaps we should be less protectionist about "our treasury of English spellings": often vestiges of an earlier etymology can resurrect in mispronunciations or deviant spellings. I'm distressed, though, that I cannot find a journal article I read on "Farm Implements and Rutabagas", by Reva Wolf. It appeared in a literary journal that I chanced upon in our Periodicals Room, but now I can't remember which. If I remember correctly, she argues that there's a link to an Andy Warhol painting with, I think, the word "rutabagas" in it, or perhaps Popeye or some other element from the poem. John disavowed any connection or knowledge of the painting, but she prints a photograph of a Thanksgiving dinner party where he is seated in front of the suspect painting. He was working at ~Art News~ at the time, and may have said that the title came from a Dutch or Flemish canvas in a catalogue he was editing at the time; but Reva Wolf again traces down the original to find that any such Old Master was in fact titled "Farm Implements and ~Vegetables~ in a Landscape", or such, so that his recounting of it was a double invention: he may have revised the title of the Dutch canvas itself in that catalogue. I'm drawing on an imperfect memory of the article here, so if anyone can help out with the proper Wolf citation, we could learn more about those rutabagas. I'm sure they're delicious with drawn butter. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 15:55:40 EDT Reply-To: Irving Weiss Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Irving Weiss Subject: Samuel Greenberg MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/enriched Anyone know anything in the last few decades written about Samuel Greenberg, him alone or his influence on Hart Crane? That is, apart from the Greenberg web site . Be grateful for any help. Irving Weiss http://members.tripod.com/~sialbach/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 16:15:31 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Kirschenbaum Subject: Boston poetry community as part of racist Boston? Geez. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed >Karen Kelley wrote: >Being from Boston, this post caught my eye. I guess I'll say it flat >out: >Boston is the most racist place I've ever lived. Granted, I >went from >there to New York & on to San Francisco--so maybe Boston >just looks bad by >comparison. It all seemed quite civilized on the >surface: the >neighborhoods were segregated and everyone knew which >lines not to cross. >Maybe it's changed since I left 15 years ago, >but I kind of doubt it. I'm not from Boston, and, hell, as a Yankees fan in 1978 even owned a "Boston Sucks" T-shirt, until my mother found out about it and made my sister take it back, but geez, no matter how racist Boston may be --and I've heard horror stories from many former residents, and, back to baseball, the Red Sox were even the last team to integrate, Pumpsie Green in 1959, if memory serves me right, a full 12 years after Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby--but from the poetic community I know their isn't even a subtle form of racism. None. Zip. Nada. The ideas of neighborhoods being segregated and knowing the uncrossable lines relates to just about any major metropolis, including San Francisco and New York, each of which I've lived in, the latter for most of my live. Instead, again, I think it's simply ignorance rather than racism, that at times leads to non-diverse events and publications, sometimes even my own. It takes an extra effort to be inclusive, be it simply through inquiry or attending more ethnically and racially diverse reading series. Be Good, David _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 13:26:55 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Jacataqua In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >I'm looking for information about "Jacataqua" -- essay by William Carlos >Williams in __In the American Grain__. The piece touches on Aaron Burr's >interaction during the Revolutionary War with the Abenaki Indians. WCW >describes the woman Jacataqua as an Abenaki "sachem" or chief, but I can >find no other historical reference to her -- anybody know if she existed? >Thanks. >Allison Cobb I once knew, when I was looking into it re Hart Crane's poem. George Bowering. , fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 13:26:53 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Taylor Brady Subject: Re: Samuel Greenberg In-Reply-To: <5789378@adam.Washcoll.EDU> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Irving, If memory serves (and being at work without my books at hand, that's a fairly large "if"), Samuel Delany has an essay on Greenberg in his _Longer Views_ collection that explores some of the Crane connections. Dovetails nicely, also, with the fictional treatment of Crane in his _Atlantis_. Taylor -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Irving Weiss Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 1999 12:56 PM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Samuel Greenberg Anyone know anything in the last few decades written about Samuel Greenberg, him alone or his influence on Hart Crane? That is, apart from the Greenberg web site . Be grateful for any help. Irving Weiss http://members.tripod.com/~sialbach/ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 04:44:25 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Jullich Subject: "alternative" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain >>> "Maria Damon (Maria Damon)" 08/09/99 05:25pm >>> "alternative" does tend to mean a certain alternative, namely, an "experimental" style. like "avant garde." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- With all of these various commentaries on the use of the phrase "alternative poetry"--- isn't this use of "alternative" derivative, though, borrowed from the marketing of contemporary music? It isn't as though poets themselves had hatched this usage, the way "Vorticist" or such may have been a genuine self-coined appellation. It's being patched in from the language at large, where it already has its politicized functions. In the NY area at least, there are radio stations, more and more actually, which play what they call "alternative" rock; it's pretty much what used to be called "punk", with a dash of occasional "metal." I have the impression that with "alternative music" the marketers use the word to soften the scary edge they don't want to name: "punk." And I would suspect that, in its "pure" form, the same might be true of "alternative poetry." Where "avant-garde" or even "experimental" may have suggested something contestatory, "defiant," or antagonistic to a status quo, the danger with a term like "alternative" is that it makes things sound as though these were arbitrary choices that one might wobble back and forth between casually: Coke/Pepsi ideology. It isn't dialectical anymore; it's styled as a mere matter of taste and whim, that you can switch the channel to "alternative" for a while if you get tired of mainstream, or whatever. Spice things up. What is being elided is that an authentic "avant-garde" might actually be meant as ~"subversive,"~ the concept of "revolutionary" art, that it is seeking to change the whole rules of the game, and wasn't served up as a diversion. "Alternative," like "pluralistic," is a troublingly ~umbrella~ term, to my thinking: I thought Jacques' helpful postings correctly implied that there are poets who are writing essentially normative and conservative poetry, who are all too happy to slip under the tent skirts of a bohemia, out of embarassment or plain obliviousness to their "complicity" in perpetuating/reproducing things as they are, or for other reasons. In short, what I am trying to say is that "alternative" is a ~vanilla-izing~ of something perhaps much more bitter and tonic than that. Or, it is a repackaging of (malgre lui) mainstream castaways who otherwise would have been lost against the mainstream's more exclusionary publishing odds. The "radical" that has lost its fight becomes "alternative." Why ~can't~ a conference bill itself as "Subversive" or "Insurrectionist"? The fading of that sensibility may have a lot to do with the latter generational "directionlessness" that is also being discussed under this Boston theme. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 17:53:32 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Clay Subject: Granary Books blow-out sale! Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Wednesday August 11, 1999 Granary Books is moving cross town at the end of August. We'd like to lighten our load of office inventory and are thus offering the following Granary publications at EXTREME SAVINGS: Discount is 50% on the following titles: ARTISTS BOOKS: A CRITICAL SURVEY OF THE LITERATURE by Stefan Klima. 1998. Paperback. 109 pp. "A thoroughly useful guide." Johanna Drucker. ISBN: 1-887123-18-0. Was: $17.95 NOW: $8.98 THE BOOK SPIRITUAL INSTRUMENT edited by Jerome Rothenberg and David Guss. 1996. Paperback. 160 pp. Illustrated. "... new worlds carved out of the wilderness of human thought and language." Charles Bernstein. ISBN: 1-887123-08-3. Was: $21.95 NOW: $10.98 THE CENTURY OF ARTISTS' BOOKS by Johanna Drucker. 1995. Illustrated throughout. 377 pp. "A crucial contribution to the history of the book in visual culture." Buzz Spector. Paperback. ISBN: 1-887123-02-4. Was: $24.95 NOW: $12.48 Cloth. ISBN: 1-887123-01-6. Was: $35 NOW: $17.50 THE CUTTING EDGE OF READING: ARTISTS' BOOKS by Renee Riese Hubert & Judd D. Hubert. 1999. Hardback. 265 pp. Illustrated throughout in color and black and white. ISBN: 1-887123-21-0. Was: $55 NOW: $27.50 FIGURING THE WORD: ESSAYS ON BOOKS, WRITING, AND VISUAL POETICS by Johanna Drucker. 1998. Paperback. Illustrated throughout. 312 pp. ISBN: 1-887123-23-7. Was: $24.95 NOW: $12.48 THE HISTORY OF THE/MY WOR(L)D by Johanna Drucker. 1995. Artist's book with text, images and layout by Drucker. Black, white and red printing. Hardback with letterpress dust jacket. 8 1/2" x 11", 40 pp. ISBN: 1-887123-06-7. Was: $50 NOW: $25 LOG RHYTHMS by Charles Bernstein and Susan Bee. 1998. 22 pp. Artist's book with text by Bernstein and images by Bee. 8 1/2" x 11" black and white; color cover. Paperback. ISBN: 1-887123-25-3. Was: $35. NOW: $17.50 A SECRET LOCATION ON THE LOWER EAST SIDE: ADVENTURES IN WRITING: 1960-1980: A SOURCEBOOK OF INFORMATION by Steven Clay and Rodney Phillips. 1998. A co-publication with the New York Public Library. 340 pp. Paperback. "... a Proustian hit of youthful exuberance, a glance at a time when artists built a community apart from the imprimature of the academy." Village Voice. Illustrated throughout. ISBN: 1-887123-20-2. Was: $27.95 NOW: $13.98 TED BERRIGAN: AN ANNOTATED CHECKLIST by Aaron Fischer. 1998. 68 pp. "I will treasure this book." Ron Padgett. Illustrated throughout in black and white and color. Features many collaborations between Berrigan and George Schneeman. ISBN: 1-887123-17-2. Was: $32.95 NOW: $16.48 THE WORD MADE FLESH by Johanna Drucker. 1996. Artist's book; text and layout by Drucker. 12 1/2" x 10 1/2", 24 pp. 500 copies. Hardback with letterpress dust jacket. ISBN: 1-887123-09-1. Was: $60 NOW: $30 SALE ENDS AUGUST 20, 1999. PAYMENT MUST ACCOMPANY ORDER. We accept: checks, Visa & Mastercard. Shipping is $2 per order, flat rate, domestic. Overseas shipping will be determined at the time of your order. Residents of the state of New York must add proper sales tax. Contact us via email: sclay@interport.net or phone: 212 226-5462, operators are standing by. For more information about any book see our website: http://www.granarybooks.com Many thanks and best wishes! Steve Clay Granary Books 568 Broadway #403 NY NY 10012 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 20:23:37 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: A H Bramhall Subject: I Guess I'll Say It Flat Out MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit true as any shit can be: the streets of Boston are racist. I myself saw Mass Ave act out. all the streets have frat parties and stupid central heating. the trees in fair Boston are sadly reluctant to accept change. many of the buildings have issues. Boston Harbour ignores castanets, Logan Airport rolls over for thunder, the Fleet Centre is where people die deader than dead, and the arhythmic parsimony of local names rewards only the enclosed. people aren't people in any determined way here. the things in the sky fall rapidly. pity only exists far, far to the west because improvement is so human. the tone of what happened 15 years ago broaches the new dynamics of concern, totally reeking of the eternal blah blah how's your stupid cat? the Boston Public Gardens has a darkness that cannot be relieved by mere rare questionable sunshine. the tone of every car is careless and sour. don't ask about any window, they are ALL THE SAME. every shopping bag contains an urge to prepare a final draft. the word 'every' is spoken every (hah!) three seconds and the books of Boston, each damn hole of them, are indented with indiscriminate malice. purple haze is a river kinder than the Charles. John Coltrane came to town and said QUIXOTIC while angrily flipping the bird. Elvin keeping time said yeah. words choose new routes here. no one (boxed redoubt) lives true life, the geese say SUCK, the SWANS remove to poetic realms, the pigeons indubitably have no rest in the perfect nest. the world is so finely wrought in smallness that every tallish structure within the city limits bows to the stress-fractured creeps who own the vocabulary now and forever. and that is how it is: one crowd is always better than another. expertise wins. bonus points when you supplicate to the answer. smooth things are marvelous. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 17:34:47 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kathy Lou Schultz Subject: Re: Lynn Miller's strong stuff Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Lynn Miller=Kevin Magee if it matters ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Kathy Lou Schultz Editor & Publisher Lipstick Eleven/Duck Press www.duckpress.org 42 Clayton Street San Francisco, CA 94117-1110 ---------- >From: KENT JOHNSON >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: Lynn Miller's strong stuff >Date: Tue, Aug 10, 1999, 10:34 AM > >Impressed and intrigued by Lynn Miller's pieces on the List >of past couple or three weeks, a bit surprised no one else has >commented. Very different and daring it seems to me. What seems new >is how an over-drived analytical/historical bent exudes an odd and >compelling lyricism, though that suggests too much that the latter is >the byproduct of the former. Maybe it's the other way around, which >would make it more interesting, actually. >Whatever the case may be, I'm sure other people are noticing too. >Keep it moving, Lynn Miller, whoever you are. > >Kent ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 22:43:44 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: eXchange MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII ==\==\= eXchange Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 22:29:52 -0400 (EDT) From: Alan Sondheim To: Julu Subject: mailme: Wed Aug 11 22:29:52 EDT 1999 mailme: Wed Aug 11 22:29:52 EDT 1999 Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 22:30:49 -0400 (EDT) From: Alan Sondheim To: Julu Subject: ARE ARE YOU THERE? Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 22:31:14 -0400 (EDT) From: Alan Sondheim To: Julu Subject: JULU? JULU? JULU? THIS IS NIKUKO. ARE YOU THERE? Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 22:31:36 -0400 (EDT) From: Alan Sondheim To: Julu Subject: PHONE PHONE RINGS. SOMEONE GET IT. Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 22:32:04 -0400 (EDT) From: Alan Sondheim To: Julu Subject: I I HAVE BETTER THINGS TO DO - ( THERE'S A PACKAGE ARRIVED. I GOT THE CALL FROM DMITRI. THERE'S A BOMB IN IT. I HAVE TO FIGURE THIS OUT. I'VE GOT TO CALL THE OTHERS. I'VE GOT BETTER THINGS TO DO. ) _________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 14:19:58 PDT Reply-To: gaufred@leland.stanford.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "K.Silem Mohammad" Subject: Re: Farm Implements? -Reply Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Jeffrey Jullich wrote: >I'm distressed, though, that I cannot find a journal article I read >on >"Farm Implements and Rutabagas", by Reva Wolf. It appeared in a >literary >journal that I chanced upon in our Periodicals Room, but now >I can't >remember which. That very interesting article is in _Poetics Journal_ No. 10. K. Silem Mohammad _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 21:03:26 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tisa Bryant Subject: Accessibility, Inclusivity, The Seen Scene In-Reply-To: <19990811201531.85026.qmail@hotmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The "guard/garde" in van- and avant- tend to do just that. It's hard to think of the words as having anything to do with "open"; they seem to work against insistence. Vanguard, at the front, standing along the curve, bordering on, bordering from, in relation to the center of concentric understanding, and bound by it until movement occurs, then starting over. The ins and outs. As I said in my post, I was one of the few, meaning three or four out of a possible 15, experimenting writers within the DRC, so said content in the Reading Series far outweighed that of the workshops/work produced. While a reunion of the DRC might be intriguing to some, its occurence at the next Alt Bo Po conference would yield yet another thread like the one currently being knotted here. I did not mean to imply that Boston's poetry scene, or its poets, were racist simply by living in a place with Boston's reputation. The DRC & RS came about out of lack, and to "break down the elitist aura surrounding (Black) literary figures." Bring 'em "home", make 'em accessible. So non-academic folks and academics could hear some poetry and meet the poets without feeling unwelcome, undereducated, or too poor. Much like, in varying respects, the Poetry Project, or the Unterberg/Y series, or Small Press Traffic, or what Aaron Kiely put together, or any other such thing going on in this world. Kiely created an event that made sense to him (and who knows who declined for whatever reason to attend?), invited people he knew, and will continue to expand and evolve as organizes future conferences, as David Kirschenbaum said. What is intriguing to me, although it's great that he's open to suggestions, is how he (or anyone) feels/thinks out the "alternative" in Boston (or anywhere) and what kinds of writers/work will be encouraged by the conferences, who will come and branch out, from the universities and from the 'hoods. Here alliances between Kiely, Lansing and Corbett could yield much, but I think Kiely's vision, and support of it, to be more important. I echo Linda Russo here, and what I think Kevin Killian was getting at. There's got to be something to get to. Where is that? Home can work just as well as anywhere, if one is comfortable there, of one's own making or ad/a/o/ption. Here I must point out that the quality of poetic life in Boston may simply not sustain many for very long. (why people leave places) It can't be the weather, which is just as bad if not worse in Buffalo. So, Jacques, back to curriculum/influence, or something. Point(s) well taken. I wish Alt Bo Po the best, count Aaron as a burgeoning force to be reckoned with, and hope to see for myself some day what happens there. The ethnicity & innovation issue (together and separately) is about inclusivity, but not ethnicity as alternative in and of itself. Here, the DRC references do not serve well. Certainly there have been some changes since The New American Poetry, or Gross & Quasha's Open Poetry, in which Black poets appeared together in the back of the book, instead of within the categorical sections in which they best fit, a move that at once showcased an impressive group of Black experimentalists and relegated them to an unfortunate and historically loaded space. But certain blindnesses still persist. Also too are the refusals by mainstream of-color editors to include same experimentalists in the publications they produce(d). This cannot be ignored. Also again, one must be seen to be part of the scene, be seen as part of the scene and seen well once seen there, understood to fit. (Back to Dodie Bellamy's persona post). It's easy to say that there are "no" or "few" (blank) writers, but then, how does one know, in publishing, especially if said writer doesn't dally with the usual signifiers in a recognizable way, if at all, goes by a first initial and non-identifiably ethnically specific last name, and/or if one doesn't show up on the scene? What is happening outside of the seen, and outside of the scene, and what does that look/sound like? How does physical presence come to be privileged over the arrival of text in this regard? This said specifically regarding inclusion/exclusion and writers of color, but also as a general query on the function of "centers", in this context. ************************************************************ Today we declare: First, they are living in a Nono form; Second, they are Nono lives; Third, they make us feel Nono; Fourth, they make us become Nono; Fifth, we Nono. Lan Ma "Manifesto of Nonoism" (Chendu, China, May 4, 1986) *************************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 23:56:58 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lynn Miller Subject: "I think I'll shut up now" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit EMMA GRAMMATICA Did you get used to words, using them? The vast warehouse that the past is if the past is not peripheral, like another existence which was really ours--people you have seen for a brief period of time or even if only Once Upon a Time, at cafes or bookstores or in houses you would never set foot in again. He belonged, then, not to the circle he'd made a point of leaving, since here he had a place and in the class to which he belonged. She must know that he needed her to reject him, needed that explosive charge to escape at all, and everything depended on the velocity. I let him luxuriate in the consciousness of that insult, for such a chronicle I would need a scale as large as life that came into view with my pen. His fanaticism about freedom made any permanent intimacy with another person impossible--the guilt he has forgotten and yet fraternally into the soft or roaring decimating an Expressionism as old as Art itself and found whenever unregulated "e/motion" outweighs reason, the pure subject, wilderness of the Subjected and caught in the content as real signs and as signs of something (humanly) "real"--as us? Or was all the philosophy a philanthropy of the irrational which takes pity on it and incorporates it into the philosopher who bends over it? I thought about it all day, that what was intended in 1912-22, how the high and low pressure systems were stages of a single system and not as separate as Ron put it in his temporary instructions. It sounds a lot more grand when you announce a new system instead of an innovation designed to "supplement" the pre-existing one. They weren't getting enough pressure from the low-pressure line, and how the high and low work together is what I was working on in Works and Days. The high pressure line pushes the vapors but where? The low pressure line follows with a void, push and pull the whole principle. It's like that concept of a backflush then purge that you stumbled on in Louisville. "It's basic," a worker told me in Illinois. "You have to go in both directions." Georg Kaiser ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 00:02:05 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: eXchange - follow-up - please read MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII ==\==\= eXchange - follow-up - please read Oh this is so stupid because I have a couple of programs that allow me to send mail to myself so I thought I'd dredge up some memories of films I made at UCLA in 1981-82; I decided to make a film a week, and that's how I did films 1-37, all 16mm sound ranging from 3 minutes to probably 20 or so - anyway I was reading Christian Metz at the time and thinking about ter- rorism which is always relevant in LA and everywhere now, and I wrote through this character called Dmitri at times, that wasn't his real name - and there were phonecalls, "Hello Hello, It's Dmitri, yes, the package has arrived," and I'd get the phone or Sung-Ja would but of course there would be no one on the other end and the phone wouldn't ring at all or maybe someone would say "ring ring" off-screen or even I'd say it before I picked up the phone - So here I am doing another short-circuit and wondering what will come of it and surely here comes Dmitri and Julu and Nikuko dragged in from the other worlds altogether, all of them in the space - of course there are no bombs - our neighborhood has a "bomb-like record" - the World Trade Center (WTC) bombing was planned in part a couple of blocks from here, and a small cell was found in the other direction, a bout five blocks away, working on blowing up the subway system, specifically the B train at the Pacific Street stop (I take it all the time), because a lot of Jews took it (which was news to me, time for reschedule) - Anyway so here comes this incoming (shades of war, stealth technology, bombers and fighters), and I make a dialog out of it - making sure that there are the usual incompletions, spaces, edges to the text - difficult to do in small texts - but it worked, using this small program, I'd just type ./.mailme THE ACTION IS NEXT TUESDAY and it would arrive with the Subject: THE set up, and the rest of the text following "in the body of the message" - saved it/them altogether - But it's a weakness of mine, this urgency, desperation - writing texts as if they mattered, life-and-death-struggles, the last words spoken by the last person on earth (it doesn't matter, no recipient, lost in the looped black holes forever, router down! router down!) - but putting this/ that package together took some time - maybe not enough - anyway you've seen the results - do what you may with them - the content's not real - is irreal - hyperreal - surreal - you can almost feel the trill of the rrr's as everything gets ready to go off (that urgency again) - somewhere people are being killed - you can count on it - Plans as stupid as this collage - attempt at a text - idiocy, stupidity - the bungle, the kludge ... __________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 17:34:18 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Boston poetry community as part of racist Boston? Geez. In-Reply-To: <19990811201531.85026.qmail@hotmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 4:15 PM -0400 8/11/99, David Kirschenbaum wrote: >>Karen Kelley wrote: > >>Being from Boston, this post caught my eye. I guess I'll say it flat >out: >>Boston is the most racist place I've ever lived. Granted, I >went from >>there to New York & on to San Francisco--so maybe Boston >just looks bad by >>comparison. It all seemed quite civilized on the >surface: the >>neighborhoods were segregated and everyone knew which >lines not to cross. >>Maybe it's changed since I left 15 years ago, >but I kind of doubt it. > >I'm not from Boston, and, hell, as a Yankees fan in 1978 even owned a >"Boston Sucks" T-shirt, until my mother found out about it and made my >sister take it back, but geez, no matter how racist Boston may be --and I've >heard horror stories from many former residents, and, back to baseball, the >Red Sox were even the last team to integrate, Pumpsie Green in 1959, if >memory serves me right, a full 12 years after Jackie Robinson and Larry >Doby--but from the poetic community I know their isn't even a subtle form of >racism. None. Zip. Nada. >The ideas of neighborhoods being segregated and knowing the uncrossable >lines relates to just about any major metropolis, including San Francisco >and New York, each of which I've lived in, the latter for most of my live. >Instead, again, I think it's simply ignorance rather than racism, that at >times leads to non-diverse events and publications, sometimes even my own. >It takes an extra effort to be inclusive, be it simply through inquiry or >attending more ethnically and racially diverse reading series. >Be Good, >David well, i gotta back karen up on this; being from boston (or rather newton, the "golden ghetto" of the greater boston area) i can attest to the sharp divisions in neighborhoods --more so than in SF or NYC. however, there are other forms of racism, such as in the Twin Cities where everything's supposed to be so nicey nice. the neighborhoods aren't as sharply divided, but people are almost wilfully naive and want to deny difference wherever they find it. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 11:18:05 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Magee Subject: thoughts on BoPo and points distant In-Reply-To: <19990809210746.23281.qmail@hotmail.com> from "David Kirschenbaum" at Aug 9, 99 05:07:46 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thinking about all this talk of BoPo. Wanted to cast my one vote of encouragement to Jacques for taking on the difficult role of instigator - essentially what he was saying was, hey, at the moment, this BoPo space has trouble accomodating/engaging a poet like me - and I think anytime a poet as intelligent and interesting as Jacques attempts to make room for himself in a particular "scene" there’s at least an opportunity for that scene to react/expand in such a way that it becomes more interesting. In any event, the result here has been some very interesting posts, Brain Stefans’ among many others. What seems to have been established, though others may disagree, is that, for a variety of reasons (and I doubt it owes much to any particular poet(s)’s malice) some writers who attempt to interact with BoPo - those who take language writing to be a major influence on their work, for instance, or those writing out of a tradition where African-American writers are front and center (and these are not mutually exclusive categories) - have felt alienated from whatever there is of a Boston scene. Then again, there’s been the suggestion that there really *isn’t* a Boston scene - certainly not a "school" - not necessarily a bad thing: trying to write one’s poems as a fourth-generation NY Schooler or whatever can’t be a whole lot of fun, confining (those of you doing this, or putting "NY School" on your business cards, cease immediately!). But the idea that a critical mass of like-minded poets in Boston would simply be stifling is a bad one. Likewise the idea that older writers within the academy are simply courted for their "clout" by younger writers seeking such clout. Jacques is right when he says that this is mostly an anti-academic truism which, even if it’s valid in some cases, impedes potentially valuable relationships. Jacques mentioned Bob Perelman’s role in the Penn/Philly poetry community and I can say this, having been in that community for the past five years: that when Bob got tenure at Penn many younger writers I know were invigorated not because he would now have "clout" but because this terrific poet with a lot to say would now probably be in Philly for a long time, rather than, say, Santa Cruz. Folks well known to this list like Steve Evans, Jennifer Moxley, Heather Fuller, etc, have been kind in saying, Hey, there really is something interesting going on in Philly - and I’m struck by how accidental that "something" was. There was Bob. Rachel Duplessis was at Temple. Ron Silliman moved to the area. Gil Ott had been there as a buoy much longer than anyone. These people weren’t a committee doling out prises for godssake, they were poets with a lot of interesting, ideas, stories, and most of all *poems*! Tisa mentioned how the Dark Room Writers Collective, and the poets they were interested in, were an enigma to most of the Boston poetry community. But for us, well, Gil had published Harryette Mullen’s S*PeRM**K*T and MUSE & DRUDGE, so she was front and center from the beginning, and what might discover many other great poets (of color and otherwise) by considering Mullen’s work as a point in a nexus and then fishing around for more points. The Writers House at Penn came about and that was a space which provided some cohesiveness - the space being more important than the money for readings (which really wasn’t/isn’t that much, ask the people who’ve read there!). Louis Cabri had come to Penn already with a lot of experience, poems, and knowing a shitload of people, and he started PHILLY TALKS; I started COMBO; Kristen Gallagher started HANDWRITTEN PRESS and a million other things. So there were some forums which, as many of you have suggested along the way, helped buoy whatever sense of community we had going. And things could be done: Louis's dueling writers in PT was taken as a suggestion of who to pay attention to and who to read, etc, in addition to being an event where ideas could be hashed out. Lot’s of NY people, D.C. people, Buffalo people coming through. Kristen, Farah Griffin and I interviewed Harryette for the first issue of COMBO and that was my way of saying - hey, this is what/who we should be paying attention to - likewise bringing Mackey, DiPalma to read. But *everyone* did this. Temple people were coming around, partly because Kerry Sherin, a grad student at Temple, became director of Writers House. Chris and Jenn McCreary started doing IXNAY. Kyle Conner and Greg Fuchs started the Highwire Gallery reading series. Then, there was Kristen Gallagher's insistence that Philly itself was not to be ignored, that rather than lament that it wasn't NY or what have you, we ought to *ground* ourselves in it - at least that's how I was hearing her. And this, for me anyway, opened up avenues whereby things as diverese (or related?) as Philly's very underrated (and inexpensive) jazz scene or the activities of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union (with whom Kristen, Mytili Jagannathan, and , again accidentally, or coincidentally, my wife) could be treated as actions/activisms which might mediate/integrate-with the symbolic action of poems. Why am I saying all this? It just seemed to me useful example in contradistinction to the current situation in Boston. In my own mind right now it seems like there are maybe 25 poets or so in or connected to Philly whose projects are quite various but who have enough in common in terms of social and aesthetic views to want to be talking to another and enough *differences* along these lines to keep that dialogue *productive*. And they have forums to support the dialogue. So, thinking of what Juliana Spahr said a while back about virtual communities, even though I now live in Rhode Island, if I figured myself as centered in any particular scene it would be the Philly scene, quite happily, though like Jacques I hope to make a little room for myself around these northern parts and hope Helen Vendler goes to her final resting place (Brookline?) to be replaced by Nate Mackey (Jacques might have a different choice in this regard). I say all this knowing that there are many interesting poets in and around Boston but that a really hopping community of poets - which, whatever anyone says, is a *good thing* is hard to come by and, as I say, pretty accidental. -Mike. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 00:20:04 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Jullich Subject: Village Voice POLYVERSE review Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Wednesday's Village Voice runs a lukewarm or even unfavorable review of Lee Ann Brown's ~Polyverse,~ filled with gratuitous innuendo about Language Poetry. The reviewer is named Thad Ziolkowski. He doesn't wait any longer than ~the first sentence~ to mention Charles (Bernstein), who selected ~Polyverse~ for the "prestigious" New American Poetry Series, and to begin casting veiled aspersions against him. We wouldn't have expected ~Polyverse~ as Charles' choice, Ziolkowski says: we would have expected "ironic, warily analytical work". Charles, here cast as papal, bishopric, or censorious by Ziolkowkski, should have been more likely to give ~that~ his "imprimatur". Ziolkowski criticizes Brown, basically, as too much a patchwork quilt of styles. (An assessment which Sun & Moon's own amazon.com Book Description is not, at a more positive slant, far afield from: "many forms and possibilities. Taking its cue from a wide range of modern and postmodern poetics, Brown's work . . .") ~Polyverse,~ he says, fails in echoing New York School, Beat, and Language, without synthesizing those influences. (Nor does Z. entertain the inkling that syncretism is not the only solution, that the ~Poly-~ in ~Polyverse~ may actually mean something, and that the segregated stylistics Brown leaves behind is ~more~ in tune with an aesthetic of polyvocalism.) He finally treats this "thirtysomething" poet (his agism) as if, as I read it, this were a beginner's problem that she will hopefully work out in time ("But then maybe the orgy among all these poetic influences is just getting warmed up"). If it weren't for Brown eroticizing her Language-like "proliferation of grammatical terms", Language Poetry by itself is just "lifeless automatic pilot". He accuses Brown of seeming "dated, frozen in a sunstruck New York--circa-1965 atmosphere". Oddly, it's her "references to Whitman, Mayakovsky, Sappho and Stein" that Ziolkowski particularly singles out as behind-the-times, but yet when he again cites her eroticism as "What saves the book from this terminally reverent tendency", he quotes her lines "She's a minor flirt,/a cloud in trousers" without so much as a blink of open recognition that "a cloud in trousers", too, is yet another homage and "reverent tendency" (O'Hara/Mayakovsky). Ziolkowski is left looking as if he doesn't know he was quoting an appropriation of Brown's, at cross-purposes, and hence is in contradiction with himself by saying that what saves the book from a debility is the same debility. His attitude may reach its pique when he writes: "You end up wondering . . . what's particularly new about this New American." Fair question. Personally, I am left wondering, if he was this global in treating Brown --- whom ("Brown is . . . goofy in a troubadour-hippie-Fugs way") he nonetheless seems to enjoy, despite his disparaging slant of praise --- what kind of harsher polemic The Village Voice would have printed if the book were indeed "ironic, warily analytical work". See: http://www.villagevoice.com/arts/9932/ziolkowski.shtml ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 12:23:06 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Kirschenbaum Subject: No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed What's up with Brooklyn poets' author bios saying they live in New York City? Technically this is true, but, damn, as one born in Brooklyn, have some pride in your borough. I was at Coliseum Books by Columbus Circle here in Manhattan the other day (the best new poetry selection this side of St. Marks Books) and found titles by Chris Stroffolino and, I think, Ange Mlinko that say they live in New York City (no one down here ever uses the distinction Manhattan when referring to the borough). A minor quibble, perhaps, but strange one would feel the need to identify themselves as living elsewhere. Be Good, David _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 14:57:40 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Franco Subject: get the wagons ina circle: re BOSTON MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Having taken a few days or so to let this swirl in my mind I think that aside from my annoyance at the previous blanket dismissal of the Festival---- ----which did its work ...there was good bad & lame by known & unknown ..(remember one of the featured west-coast readers going on for 45 minutes when every one else was cutting back to a poem or two???) to wonderful moments like Windy Kramer's or Dan Bouchard's reading (which show his work to be Moving) Scalapino or Hejinian ...or Lease's short lovely burst or Gander's or... or...or... & having produced Word of Mouth on my own for ten years I know what Aaron K does / did in setting all of this into motion & then getting the hell out of the way....& just letting what ever happens happen I return to my original post and this thought: if we went through the whole weekend for nothing more than to have been there for the Sat night read it was a memorable success... We were there - we gathered together- we met each other (for some again) shared food poetry and a remarkable set of readings Now lets us return to the other thread running through here & that is the "Boston" scene & then the whole concept of "scene" . it was great to see the post on the DARK ROOM COLLECTIVE as there were many many memorable events there... I often scheduled Word of mouth events so that I could attend the darkroom.... They had a resident jazz band who were truly fine & readers as diverse in their work as one could ask for. Both the Blacksmith House reading series (no university affiliation) and Stone Soup (no university) (Gail Mazer & Jack Powers respectively), have continued for over two decades... when Bill Corbett was working with Gail the series was inspired... & continually swirled differing poetries -both local & international- together... Stone Soup has been the only truly open sign up reading in continuous operation... Gian Lombardo's DOLPHIN MOON series ran for years at the Cambridge YMCA (unfunded- not university affiliated) Joe Torra- in addition to working with me for a time at WoM held a very good series of readings at his home...mostly locals or Providence/ Ny poets but all with decent crowds as well as producing the run of lift & I have for years now done in-home evenings . . .dinner & a reading for 10 or so & just this past spring started the Oxford street talk series with Gerrit Lansing & Diane di Prima as the openers & this will as time goes on continue. & then there is Word of Mouth which ran at Tapas for near ten years & continues in various forms...most recently in residence at Watersone's Books... in the decade at Tapas (which began in 87 but only started to really take shape in March of 88 with the Duncan Memorial) I presented local & national poets as well as Reading versions of Spicer's AFTER LORCA [87] A COMPLETE CORRESPONDENCE - Olson, Corman, Creeley [88] Stein's TENDER BUTTONS & 4 SAINTS- an afternoon of S. Jonas films of LZ, RD, Wieners, OHara, Whalen, Ginsberg, Olson etc. from the 66 NET series.... I met Corbett at the inception of the series he came & read for the opener and he pushed readers my way for the entire time - & a wide variety of same...in fact I can not imagine Word of Mouth existing without him; Torra I first met there...via Ferrini who was and remains active here; Ange Mlinko called me up one evening when Leslie Scalapino was reading.... & later that year came on board to work with me .... Torra started the planning for lift during a dinner (for Proust if memory serves) Ed Barrett [whose book COMMON PRELUDES is a small wonder for many of us; Christopher Sawyer-Laucanno, Patricia Pruitt, Dan Bouchard, Joe Lease, (another early meeting via Cid Corman) Robert Pinsky, Askhold Melnyczuk [AGNI] & Lombardo who is now producing a prose poem mag called KEY(SATCH)le, Gerrit Lansing was as he remains a key source & frequent guest, Fanny Howe (a resident then). Gerald Burns was a huge source & friend over the years he lived here & always pushed the series.... the composer Eli Yarden, artists Katha Seidman & Ben Watkins & renaissance Man Thorpe Feidt -all contributed as they continue to do to the scene... There were readings by Blaser, Creeley, di Prima, Eshleman, Irby, Mackey, Waldman, Gander, Elmslie, Drucker. . .I could go on & on see LINGO 7 [On Boston] for a more extensive list; or for work from this scene as I see ia portion of it see TALISMAN 16, (fall 1996). The scene has ebbed and flowed as it continues to. if there is a center it its the very lack of a center- which those I know best greatly enjoy. A large number of us have no university affiliations at all (Torra & I both wait tables for $$). & if there is a poetics (& I would argue that there is whilst Torra or Corbett would be vehement that there is not) it is in the primacy of the Work of the work. Simply: either it is interesting or not- regardless of its form. For me the currency is challenge & learning...i.e. am I /do I - schools theories et al are meaningless. But the Work at work... that is the center.... Poetry is the center. The scene is uneven...lacks uniformity & is various in form... a cosmos. If you need personalities with clout (I don't) there would be Corbett's dinner table to supply sustenance ... from Auster to Cooledge to S Heaney to Ashbery. Or there would be the figure of Guston...the example of his working (see Corbett's Guston book). Wieners, Olson, Lansing, Jonas, Blaser, Spicer, (all spent time here) are all claimed presences (and for me Duncan) people, like poetries, come and go- as does energy. there are weeks when nothing is happening and others when there is a reading to be at every night. At Word of Mouth I was constant in greeting new faces and attempting to hook people up... this is the function of a series as far as I am concerned. anyhow all of this is to say that there was and is a scene here. It is a very accessible scene for anyone who takes the time to attend the various events & to actively participate. [I am reminded here that I wrote to Cid Corman in 86 or so that I could not get a reading here.. he told me to stop carping & start a reading series] In my public work here I am keenly aware of the university presence ...& of its very narrow leanings. This is nothing new. I am also aware that there is another path (I invited Helen Vendler to speak at the Duncan Memorial as indeed I should have... & she in turn should have spoken: But of that I have no control . . . history will. Again what is not here what ignores what is here is of no interest. Each scene as each poem as each Theory is an ACT of creation. made up. constantly remade & redefined & constant in its need for same. the rest you can have. Corbett says later in the lift interview: What are the poems ? What are we talking about, What are we looking at? lets start here... Again the common bond between us is THE WORK its creation and the daily living that enables that work. I cannot say this too often. All best Michael Franco PSS this thought re the "obscenity riddled phone messages/calls.... as we all stand huddled over the romance of "a scene" we might do well to wonder in a real way -as we recall those scenes of the past, if we could actually tolerate the real of such. Jacques...can you imagine the call you might... might???!!! WOULD have received from Spicer - had your comments addressed San Francisco???? The caller that left an unidentified message should be cursed -further- with writers block .... the "other caller" whose time and intimacy accosted you... spoke out from what you mistake as a malaise MF all best Michael Franco ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 20:29:03 GMT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joan Houlihan Subject: Re: I Guess I'll Say It Flat Out Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed "expertise wins." The one true thing anyone here has said about Boston so far--and the reason why a so-called "alternative" poetry conference cannot have much impact. Boston has seen, been, *is* poetry, alternative, and alternative to the alternative--from Lowell to Plath, from Davidson to Heaney, from Pinsky to Wolcott, from Henri Cole to Lucie Brock-Broido, from Patricia Smith to Brother Blue, from every jam-packed Boston Globe Calendar with it's incredible variety of poetry readings and happenings, to its intense mega-doses of poetry workshops--in universities (BU, Harvard, MIT, BC), in poets' homes, in the Cambridge Center for the Arts. Not to mention all the great and diverse poets who have lived, worked and continue to do so in Boston colleges and surrounding suburbs. It's an incredible, beautiful, electric, eclectic, intellectual and artistic environment with some of the most breathtaking seasonal beauty in the country. If there is a better place for real poetry to flourish I don't know about it. This will do fine for me. >From: A H Bramhall >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: I Guess I'll Say It Flat Out >Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 20:23:37 -0400 > >true as any shit can be: the >streets of Boston are racist. I >myself saw Mass Ave >act out. all the streets >have frat parties and >stupid central heating. the trees >in fair Boston are >sadly reluctant to >accept change. many >of the buildings >have issues. Boston Harbour >ignores castanets, Logan Airport >rolls over for thunder, the Fleet Centre is >where people die >deader than dead, and the arhythmic >parsimony of local names >rewards only the enclosed. >people aren't people >in any determined way >here. the things >in the sky >fall rapidly. >pity only exists far, >far to the west >because improvement is so >human. the tone of what >happened 15 >years ago >broaches the new dynamics >of concern, totally >reeking of the >eternal blah blah >how's your stupid cat? >the Boston >Public Gardens has a >darkness that cannot be relieved >by mere rare questionable >sunshine. the tone >of every car is careless and >sour. don't ask about >any window, they are >ALL THE SAME. every shopping bag >contains an urge to >prepare a final draft. the word 'every' >is spoken every (hah!) >three seconds and >the books of Boston, each damn >hole of them, are indented with indiscriminate >malice. purple haze is a river >kinder than the Charles. >John Coltrane came to >town and said QUIXOTIC while >angrily flipping the bird. Elvin >keeping time said >yeah. words choose new >routes here. no one (boxed redoubt) lives >true life, the geese say SUCK, the SWANS remove to >poetic realms, the pigeons indubitably >have no rest in the perfect >nest. the world is so >finely wrought in smallness >that every tallish >structure within the >city limits >bows to the stress-fractured >creeps who own the vocabulary >now and forever. and that >is how it is: one crowd is >always better than >another. expertise >wins. bonus points >when you supplicate to >the answer. smooth things >are marvelous. _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 10:15:38 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Buuck Subject: Tripwire 3 now available MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit tripwire: a journal of poetics edited by Yedda Morrison & David Buuck Announcing Tripwire 3 : Gender featuring work by: Diane Ward Carla Harryman & Lyn Hejinian Stefani Barber Norma Cole Jocelyn Saidenberg Linda Russo Claude Cahun (trans. Norma Cole) Elizabeth Robinson Brian Lennon Elizabeth Treadwell Erin Tribble Rob Halpern Sarah Anne Cox Kevin Killian David Buuck Jen Hofer & Summi Kaipa on Harryman & Hejinian Louis Cabri & Kristen Gallagher on Heather Fuller Hung Q Tu on Steve Farmer & P Inman Roberto Tejada on Hoa Nguyen Kristin Prevallet on _The Hat_ Brian Kim Stefans on Rod Smith, Rodrigo Toscano, & Dan Farrell Jen Hofer on Liz Fodaski Kimberly Filbee on Lisa Robertson & art by: Rebeca Bollinger Amanda Hughen Linda Cummings Tasha Robbins Leona Christie & more --- 160 pages. $8 issue / $15 2 issue subscription (outside US pls add $2 per) Thanks for your support! tripwire c/o Morrison & Buuck PO Box 420936 SF CA 94142-0936 yedd@aol.com Tripwire also available at Small Press Distribution, St. Mark's in NYC, Bridge St in DC, Powell's in Portland, Cody's in Berkeley, Beyond Baroque in LA, & City Lights, Modern Times, Clean Well-Lighted, & Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. Contributors & subscribers: Your issues are in the mail... ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 13:04:18 -0400 Reply-To: Tom Orange Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Orange Subject: 19th C. Po&sie In-Reply-To: <199908120412.AAA13420@juliet.its.uwo.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII mike, there are single-author works a-plenty, good anthologies a little harder to come by. as to the latter, if you can scare up a copy of it at a secondhand store, _An anthology of French poetry from Nerval to Valery in English translation_ ed. angel flores (Garden City, N. Y., Doubleday, 1962) is pretty good: the translations are in verse and if i remember right not presented en face but gathered together in the back of the book. they're also done by a variety of translators and hence can be uneven. baudelaire: the two by-now standard editions are the one jackson and marthiel matthews edited for new directions in the mid-fifties (multiple reprintings, including a selected) and richard howard's edition for godine in 1985. the matthews' edition suffers, again, from some unevenness due to its being a gathering of different translators' work. howard on the other hand tends to spiff baudelaire up too much for those who like their baudelaire more ragged and soiled. translations by arthur symons and the george dillon-edna st.v millay collaboration are interesting more for historical purposes. i'd stay away from william h. crosby's edition for boa, his insistence on metrical faithfulness forces him into some serious padding. another version that's cheap and reliable is the oxford world's classics tr. james mcgowan. but you asked about plain prose translations: in which case, francis scarfe's edition for anvil in 1986 -- he does plain prose translations at the bottom of the page. rimbaud: the penguin collected poems (tr. oliver bernard) also does plain prose translations at the bottom of the page... laforgue: penguin has just brought out a laforgue that i havent read yet but also hass plain prose at the bottom. otherwise, the one i have and like a lot is the peter dale translations publ. by anvil (1986) verlaine: a tougher case. for a long time the only one you could find was the c.f. macintyre versions put out by u.california press in the 1950s. (and ditto for his mallarme translations). there's a new one from uchicago press, tr. norman shapiro, that i've only seen but not read... mallarme: henry weinfeld's collected poems from ucal is a fine edition. another good one, tho again out of print, is the penguin edition w/ translations by anthony hartley i think his name is. happy hunting, tom orange / wash,dc ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 13:15:16 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Orange Subject: Call for Entries: "Poevisioni elettroniche" (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "ART ELECTRONICS" To: Subject: CALL FOR ENTRIES "Poevisioni elettroniche" Date: =09Tue, 10 Aug 1999 01:38:42 +0200 http://space.tin.it/arte/cprezi>>> Davinio Art Electronics In cooperation with Karenina.it Experimental Net-zine http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Lights/7323/kareninarivista.html>>> ELECTRONIC POE(try)VISIONS 2000 Caterina Davinio Director You can contribute to the festival "Poevisioni elettroniche" (Art Electronics and Others Writings) 1. by sending your video-work (if you are a videoartist, a computer artist, a web artist or a videopoet-writer-performer) recorded on a vhs standard (PAL) videocassette, preferably not over 10 minutes, 2. by sending a short theoretical or informative report on your artistic or organisational experiences (a 10 min. vhs-standard videoreport is also possible), 3. by proposing artists, if you are a curator or an art critic (Fax: Italy-039-323389), engaged in research projects that utilise new technologies, with particular attention, not to the image only, but also to the script, the communication and to visual and video poetry (book excluded). 1. All forms of image, sound, experimental music and "writing" are admitted (computerart and graphics, videoart, videopoetry, virtual reality, various kind of telematic interaction, videoperformance, theatrical multi-medial experiments, installations), provided that recorded on standard VHS videocassette (PAL) (for sonore poetry an audiocassette is also possible). The original text and an English or French translation should be enclosed. 2. The collected material, even if not utilised, will not be returned, it will enter in the festival videotheque. 3. The selected works will be projected in an itinerant exhibition. Electron=ECe d'arte e altre scritture 94-95 have been shown at: Pecci Museu= m of Prato, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Lavatoio Contumaciale Cultural Association (Rome), Link Gallery (Bologna), Auditorium Maddalene (Padova), Atelier Gluck (Milan), Artifex Gallery (Torino), Giubbe Rosse Electronic Ar= t Caf=E9, Spaziotempo Gallery (Florence). Organisational and theoretical contribution from: A. Amaducci, F. Bettini, T. Binga, M. Bufano, A. Caronia= , C. Davinio, D. Evola, G. Fontana, D. Gasparinetti, M. Lunetta, W. Pedull=E0= , C. Prati, R. Terrosi, G. Toti., magazines: La stanza rossa, Codici Immaginari. Have proposed artists: Cit=E9 des arts et des nouvelles tecnologies (Canada), Performance Space (Australia), R. Daolio, C. Davinio, V. Fagone, F. Galluzzi, M. M. Gazzano, C. Infante, S. Lischi, M. G. Mattei, M. Mori, R. Sardo. Poevisioni Elettroniche 96-97-98-99 (Parole Virtuali/Virtual Words) have been shown at: Anfiteatro Fortezza Medicea (Siena), Teatro Sant'angelo (Perugia), Palazzo Gambalunga (Rimini), Casa delle Culture (Rome), Palazzo Ducale (Genova) , Magazzini Ferroviari ai Lolli (Palermo), Teatro Alkestis (Cagliari), Bergamo University, Ex Convento Sant'Agostino (Bergamo), in co-operation with the videofestivals: Visionaria '96, Cortomiraggi '97, Intravideo, Genovantasettevideo, Round '97 and '99, L'immagine Leggera, V-Art '97 and '98, Tuoi cespi solitari...98, Clorofilla 98, Festafestival '99. 4. The archives material could be utilised in future in non-profit-making cultural activity, informing the artists. A catalogue and/or a video/WEB catalogue, containing a selection of works (30"-1' of every work), critic and theoretical text, photos can be distributed for promotional purpose. VERY IMPORTANT: it is obligatory to send with the VHS STANDARD PAL videocassette: an authorisation (with legible signature) 1) to show the video-works in no-profit cultural exhibitions, 2) to publish and/or distribute photos and biography (as photocopy, Web documents, printed matter), 3) to include the works, even if not selected, in the festival videotheque, all without compensation or refund a biography in English or French technical characteristics of works (media, supports, hardware, software) colour photos text explaining the artistic research Address: Davinio Art Electronics V. Oslavia 34 - 20052 Monza (Milan) All the audio-visual material included in the archives will only be shown b= y authorisation of the artists, will not be broadcasted or projected out of n= o profit making tours, will not be copied or transferred for any purpose. "Electron=ECe" is a festival on a very tight budget that makes it impossibl= e to pay copyright and honorarium to the numerous authors and operators, but, even if not remunerative, it is prestigious and has for the artists a publi= c image and notoriety repayment. Thank-you for your co-operation! AUTHORISATION YES, I, (name): AUTHOR of the work/s (TITLE): ARTIST ADDRESS: TELEPHONE...........................................FAX....................= =2E =2E... EMAIL.....................................................WEBPAGE..........= =2E =2E...... I KNOW: 1."Poevisioni elettroniche" is an itinerant festival on a very tight budget that makes it impossible to pay copyright and honorarium to the authors, th= e critics and the co-operators, 2.that my work, even if not utilised, will not be returned, it will enter i= n the festival videotheque, 3.that the videotheque material could be utilised in future in non-profit-making cultural activity, only after informing me, 4.a catalogue and/or a video/WEB catalogue, containing 2"-1' of my work, my critic and theoretical text, photos of my work can be edited and distribute= d for promotional purpose. 5 I am legally owner of copyright and responsible for not authorised use in my video of images, music, text, production and/or post-production work, totally or in part, of other persons. I AUTHORISE THE CURATOR TO SHOW MY VIDEO-WORK/S: (TITLE) =2E........................................................................= =2E.. =2E........................................................................= =2E.. =2E........................... (PRODUCTION).......................................... YEAR OF PRODUCTION ........... IN NO-PROFIT CULTURAL EXHIBITIONS, TO PUBLISH AND/OR DISTRIBUTE PHOTOS AND BIOGRAPHY (AS PHOTOCOPY, WEB DOCUMENTS, PRINTED MATTER, CATALOGUE), TO INCLUDE THE WORKS, EVEN IF NOT SELECTED, IN THE FESTIVAL VIDEOTHEQUE, TO UTILISE MY WORK IN FUTURE IN NON-PROFIT-MAKING CULTURAL ACTIVITY, ONLY B= Y INFORMING ME, TO INSERT IN A CATALOGUE AND/OR A VIDEO/WEB CATALOGUE, 2"-1' OF MY WORK, MY CRITIC AND THEORETICAL TEXT, PHOTOS AND TO EDIT AND DISTRIBUTE THEM FOR PROMOTIONAL PURPOSE WITHOUT ANY REPAYMENT, COMPENSATION OR REFUND. DATE............................................. LEGIBLE SIGNATURE =2E........................................................................= =2E.. =2E....... Yes, I, (artist, curator, art critic, cultural operator) (NAME)................................................... ADDRESS....................................................................= =2E =2E.......... TELEPHONE...........................................FAX....................= =2E =2E.... EMAIL............................... PROPOSE THE FOLLOWING ARTISTS (name, address, phone, email, web): 1..........................................................................= =2E =2E................. 2..........................................................................= =2E =2E................. 3..........................................................................= =2E =2E................. 4..........................................................................= =2E =2E................. DATE............................................. LEGIBLE SIGNATURE =2E................................................................... ART ELECTRONICS AND OTHER WRITINGS VIDEOFESTIVAL DAVINIO ART ELECTRONICS Digital Video, Videopoetry, Videoperformance, Multimedia, Computerart Videotheque HOME ---------------------------------------------------------------------------= - ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 10:27:48 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Buuck Subject: Tripwire 4: call for work MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit tripwire: a journal of poetics edited by Yedda Morrison & David Buuck call for submissions---- Tripwire 4: WORK Material v. intellectual labor. Class, production, productivity, economy. Practice, handiwork, wordwork, work ethic, workplace, co-worker. What is significance of one's work to one's writing? Of one's writing as work? Labor, capital, use value, industry. How does one participate in and against local and global economoies/cultures? Work force, workbook, workshop. In a small-press economy, what are the standards for "just compensation," for exploitation? Knowledge industries. Cultural workers. "Model post-industrial employees?" Exploitation, task, effort. Mission, service, vocation, career(ism). End- product, by-product, opus, oeuvre. Tripwire invites submissions of essays, translations, interviews, art & book reviews, bulletins, letters responding to previous issues, and visual art. Visual art submissions should be reproducible in B&W; artists are encouraged to include a statement about their work. At this time we are not accepting unsolicited poetry for publication. All submissions should include a hard copy. Deadline for submissions to Tripwire 4 is March 1, 2000. TRIPWIRE c/o Morrison & Buuck PO Box 420936 SF CA 94142-0936 yedd@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 10:36:17 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Buuck Subject: back issues of tripwire MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit tripwire: a journal of poetics edited by Yedda Morrison & David Buuck There are still a few copies remaining of Tripwire 2: Writing as Activism. Featuring work by Steve Farmer, Ben Friedlander, Danielle Collobert, Rodrigo Toscano, Brenda Iijima, Brian Kim Stefans, Rod Smith, Noah de Lissovoy, Kristin Prevallet, Jack Hirschman, Lawless Crow (w/John Lowther & Pandy Prunty), Dodie Bellamy, Robert Fitterman, Elizabeth Treadwell & Sarah Anne Cox, Patrick Durgin, Kathy Lou Schultz, Pamela Lu, Juliana Spahr, Louis Cabri, Chris Chen, Lytle Shaw, Anselm Berrigan. 180 pages. $ 8 from Small Press Distribution. Or: for $21, subscribe to Tripwire & receive issues 2,3, & 4. (Outside of US, $25) "while supplies last..." Tripwire c/o Morrison & Buuck PO Box 420936 SF CA 94142 yedd@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 13:47:13 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Kelley Subject: Re: Boston poetry community as part of racist Boston? Geez. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > well, i gotta back karen up on this; being from boston (or rather newton, > the "golden ghetto" of the greater boston area) i can attest to the sharp > divisions in neighborhoods --more so than in SF or NYC. however, there are > other forms of racism, such as in the Twin Cities where everything's > supposed to be so nicey nice. the neighborhoods aren't as sharply divided, > but people are almost wilfully naive and want to deny difference wherever > they find it. I know my comment was sweeping, but I loved the city and it infuriated me to hear the enervated "Pity there wasn't more diversity" tone to a couple of the BoPo posts. The pervasive "gee, it's not *really* racism; it's ignorance" response of many Bostonians (and yeah, I know, upstanding citizens of other metropoli) makes me crazy. Somehow similar to the politicians all making their "We must stop these random shootings that seem to keep happening" speeches. Like, *duh.* These sentences have always let the problem live; and lately it strikes me that they might actually be serving as a kind of fertilizer. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 17:05:16 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Al Filreis Subject: Re: thoughts on BoPo and points distant In-Reply-To: <199908121518.LAA104292@dept.english.upenn.edu> from "Michael Magee" at Aug 12, 99 11:18:05 am MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mike Magee wrote: | I say all this knowing that there are | many interesting poets in and around Boston but that a really hopping | community of poets - which, whatever anyone says, is a *good thing* | is hard to come by and, as I say, pretty accidental. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- I agree with most of what you say, Mike--especially about the Philadelphia scene as a possible counterexample. But I don't agree that it has been "pretty accidental." Some convergences are chances, to be sure; but most of all it's all been consicous willed hard work (including, significantly, your own). Your own Combo didn't just happen. It was to some perhaps crucial degree "made possible" by a lot of things and conditions already (by then) in place. Same with PhillyTalks, inventive as that project of Louis' has been. Consciously and willfully yours, --Al ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 17:13:22 -0400 Reply-To: joris@csc.albany.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: "alternative" In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Yes, indeed Maria, I think you are spot on re "alternative" - the term doesn't cut it for me either & I'd rather stay with the slew of slightly gamy words like experimental, avant-garde, etc. I don't want an "alternative" - because that leaves the original untouched, simply suggesting something else of the same value, thus referring to taste, a fake choice ( 40 different bagels to choose from, though all are made with the same shitty flour, say). I want change, something, the world, the mind, to be altered - or at least I need to be able to believe that such a radical change is possible. "Alternative" is a shell-game for quick change artists. -- Pierre -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu] On Behalf Of Jeffrey Jullich Sent: Thursday, August 12, 1999 4:44 AM To: POETICS@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu Subject: "alternative" >>> "Maria Damon (Maria Damon)" 08/09/99 05:25pm >>> "alternative" does tend to mean a certain alternative, namely, an "experimental" style. like "avant garde." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------ With all of these various commentaries on the use of the phrase "alternative poetry"--- isn't this use of "alternative" derivative, though, borrowed from the marketing of contemporary music? It isn't as though poets themselves had hatched this usage, the way "Vorticist" or such may have been a genuine self-coined appellation. It's being patched in from the language at large, where it already has its politicized functions. In the NY area at least, there are radio stations, more and more actually, which play what they call "alternative" rock; it's pretty much what used to be called "punk", with a dash of occasional "metal." I have the impression that with "alternative music" the marketers use the word to soften the scary edge they don't want to name: "punk." And I would suspect that, in its "pure" form, the same might be true of "alternative poetry." Where "avant-garde" or even "experimental" may have suggested something contestatory, "defiant," or antagonistic to a status quo, the danger with a term like "alternative" is that it makes things sound as though these were arbitrary choices that one might wobble back and forth between casually: Coke/Pepsi ideology. It isn't dialectical anymore; it's styled as a mere matter of taste and whim, that you can switch the channel to "alternative" for a while if you get tired of mainstream, or whatever. Spice things up. What is being elided is that an authentic "avant-garde" might actually be meant as ~"subversive,"~ the concept of "revolutionary" art, that it is seeking to change the whole rules of the game, and wasn't served up as a diversion. "Alternative," like "pluralistic," is a troublingly ~umbrella~ term, to my thinking: I thought Jacques' helpful postings correctly implied that there are poets who are writing essentially normative and conservative poetry, who are all too happy to slip under the tent skirts of a bohemia, out of embarassment or plain obliviousness to their "complicity" in perpetuating/reproducing things as they are, or for other reasons. In short, what I am trying to say is that "alternative" is a ~vanilla-izing~ of something perhaps much more bitter and tonic than that. Or, it is a repackaging of (malgre lui) mainstream castaways who otherwise would have been lost against the mainstream's more exclusionary publishing odds. The "radical" that has lost its fight becomes "alternative." Why ~can't~ a conference bill itself as "Subversive" or "Insurrectionist"? The fading of that sensibility may have a lot to do with the latter generational "directionlessness" that is also being discussed under this Boston theme. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 16:10:32 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: get the wagons ina circle: re BOSTON In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" all this talk of the city of my heart is very heartening. i do not see jacques as having cast aspersions but as having raised issues. i see tisa's post as crucial and i reiterate my suggestion to include a darkroom collective reunion as a major part of next year's bopoco. i like all the posts weighing in from Filly, having just heard many encomia to the Writers' House at the Bard Poetry and Pedagogy conference it sounds dreamy... this kind of thinking is terrific and seems like part of what the LIST is for...generating debate about poetic communities and in the course of doing so, constructing one... ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 17:23:04 -0400 Reply-To: joris@csc.albany.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: Accessibility, Inclusivity, The Seen Scene In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Much enjoyed your posts re Boston poetry scene, Tisa. But seem to have missed mention by anyone on this thread (correct me if I'm wrong) of my favorite of the long departed Boston poetas: Stephen Jonas, killed by smack, or Boston, in the mid-sixties. Is he still being read? Or forgotten despite Joe Torra's work? I'm pretty sure Torra's selected Jonas from Talisman is still in print.-- Pierre -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu] On Behalf Of Tisa Bryant Sent: Thursday, August 12, 1999 12:03 AM To: POETICS@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu Subject: Accessibility, Inclusivity, The Seen Scene The "guard/garde" in van- and avant- tend to do just that. It's hard to think of the words as having anything to do with "open"; they seem to work against insistence. Vanguard, at the front, standing along the curve, bordering on, bordering from, in relation to the center of concentric understanding, and bound by it until movement occurs, then starting over. The ins and outs. As I said in my post, I was one of the few, meaning three or four out of a possible 15, experimenting writers within the DRC, so said content in the Reading Series far outweighed that of the workshops/work produced. While a reunion of the DRC might be intriguing to some, its occurence at the next Alt Bo Po conference would yield yet another thread like the one currently being knotted here. I did not mean to imply that Boston's poetry scene, or its poets, were racist simply by living in a place with Boston's reputation. The DRC & RS came about out of lack, and to "break down the elitist aura surrounding (Black) literary figures." Bring 'em "home", make 'em accessible. So non-academic folks and academics could hear some poetry and meet the poets without feeling unwelcome, undereducated, or too poor. Much like, in varying respects, the Poetry Project, or the Unterberg/Y series, or Small Press Traffic, or what Aaron Kiely put together, or any other such thing going on in this world. Kiely created an event that made sense to him (and who knows who declined for whatever reason to attend?), invited people he knew, and will continue to expand and evolve as organizes future conferences, as David Kirschenbaum said. What is intriguing to me, although it's great that he's open to suggestions, is how he (or anyone) feels/thinks out the "alternative" in Boston (or anywhere) and what kinds of writers/work will be encouraged by the conferences, who will come and branch out, from the universities and from the 'hoods. Here alliances between Kiely, Lansing and Corbett could yield much, but I think Kiely's vision, and support of it, to be more important. I echo Linda Russo here, and what I think Kevin Killian was getting at. There's got to be something to get to. Where is that? Home can work just as well as anywhere, if one is comfortable there, of one's own making or ad/a/o/ption. Here I must point out that the quality of poetic life in Boston may simply not sustain many for very long. (why people leave places) It can't be the weather, which is just as bad if not worse in Buffalo. So, Jacques, back to curriculum/influence, or something. Point(s) well taken. I wish Alt Bo Po the best, count Aaron as a burgeoning force to be reckoned with, and hope to see for myself some day what happens there. The ethnicity & innovation issue (together and separately) is about inclusivity, but not ethnicity as alternative in and of itself. Here, the DRC references do not serve well. Certainly there have been some changes since The New American Poetry, or Gross & Quasha's Open Poetry, in which Black poets appeared together in the back of the book, instead of within the categorical sections in which they best fit, a move that at once showcased an impressive group of Black experimentalists and relegated them to an unfortunate and historically loaded space. But certain blindnesses still persist. Also too are the refusals by mainstream of-color editors to include same experimentalists in the publications they produce(d). This cannot be ignored. Also again, one must be seen to be part of the scene, be seen as part of the scene and seen well once seen there, understood to fit. (Back to Dodie Bellamy's persona post). It's easy to say that there are "no" or "few" (blank) writers, but then, how does one know, in publishing, especially if said writer doesn't dally with the usual signifiers in a recognizable way, if at all, goes by a first initial and non-identifiably ethnically specific last name, and/or if one doesn't show up on the scene? What is happening outside of the seen, and outside of the scene, and what does that look/sound like? How does physical presence come to be privileged over the arrival of text in this regard? This said specifically regarding inclusion/exclusion and writers of color, but also as a general query on the function of "centers", in this context. ************************************************************ Today we declare: First, they are living in a Nono form; Second, they are Nono lives; Third, they make us feel Nono; Fourth, they make us become Nono; Fifth, we Nono. Lan Ma "Manifesto of Nonoism" (Chendu, China, May 4, 1986) *************************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 17:27:26 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Kirschenbaum Subject: Johnny Appleseed Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Sorry for two posts in one day,but: Karen Kelley wrote: >it infuriated me >to hear the enervated "Pity there wasn't more diversity" tone to a couple >of the BoPo posts. The pervasive "gee, it's not *really* racism; it's >ignorance" response of many Bostonians (and yeah, I know, upstanding >citizens of other metropoli) makes me crazy. Somehow similar to the >politicians all making their "We must stop these random shootings that seem >to keep happening" speeches. Like, *duh.* These sentences have always let >the problem live; and lately it strikes me that they might actually be >serving as a kind of fertilizer. There's a difference in addressing a situation and rectifying it. Is someone who simply doesn't know until turned on, such as myself, just a decade ago, toward a poet as "known" as Ferlinghetti, not simply ignorant? Once introduced, though, the burden is all in the newbee's hands. Race, in this context, simply doesn't enter into the equation. Statements do, as you say, simply let the problem live, but only if that's all they are, yet another editorial assailing the system, without proposing a route toward change. If something is to be attacked, it's an education system that introduces poetry through memorization and recitation of a certain group of long-dead white males, with a few token females and people of color sprinkled in for diversity's sake. Here's where the racism is quite often full-throttle. It's no wonder most of us are ignorant of some corner of this vast library. Be Good, David _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 21:31:28 GMT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joan Houlihan Subject: Re: Boston poetry community as part of racist Boston? Geez. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed RE: well, i gotta back karen up on this; being from boston (or rather newton, the "golden ghetto" of the greater boston area) i can attest to the sharp divisions in neighborhoods --more so than in SF or NYC. I am also from Newton (the "golden ghetto" )and got used to running into people who thought I was rich. But you should know better, as do I: Newton is comprised of many Newtons: Newton Center, Newtonville, West Newton, Newton Highlands, Newton Upper Falls, Newton Lower Falls, THE LAKE (!!), Chestnut Hill, etc, etc. --it is one of the most economically diverse suburbs in Boston, if not THE most diverse. Yes, it is chock-full of lawyers and psychiatrists (Newton Center has the highest number of psychiatrists per sq mile in the country) and the "new" high-tech rich, but just a few miles away in any direction are the working class and blue collar people. Artists and writers also flourish there--it's close to the city and also has a lively arts scene of its own. If by "sharp divisions" in neighborhoods, you mean racially unmixed neighborhoods, well, when I was growing up there it was not racially/ethnically mixed--but no suburb that far away from the city was. Now it is though. If you don't believe me, take a trip down Washington Street from West Newton to Newton Corner, or drive through some neighborhoods next time you're there. >From: Maria Damon >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: Re: Boston poetry community as part of racist Boston? Geez. >Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 17:34:18 -0600 > >At 4:15 PM -0400 8/11/99, David Kirschenbaum wrote: > >>Karen Kelley wrote: > > > >>Being from Boston, this post caught my eye. I guess I'll say it flat > >out: > >>Boston is the most racist place I've ever lived. Granted, I >went from > >>there to New York & on to San Francisco--so maybe Boston >just looks bad >by > >>comparison. It all seemed quite civilized on the >surface: the > >>neighborhoods were segregated and everyone knew which >lines not to >cross. > >>Maybe it's changed since I left 15 years ago, >but I kind of doubt it. > > > >I'm not from Boston, and, hell, as a Yankees fan in 1978 even owned a > >"Boston Sucks" T-shirt, until my mother found out about it and made my > >sister take it back, but geez, no matter how racist Boston may be --and >I've > >heard horror stories from many former residents, and, back to baseball, >the > >Red Sox were even the last team to integrate, Pumpsie Green in 1959, if > >memory serves me right, a full 12 years after Jackie Robinson and Larry > >Doby--but from the poetic community I know their isn't even a subtle form >of > >racism. None. Zip. Nada. > >The ideas of neighborhoods being segregated and knowing the uncrossable > >lines relates to just about any major metropolis, including San Francisco > >and New York, each of which I've lived in, the latter for most of my >live. > >Instead, again, I think it's simply ignorance rather than racism, that at > >times leads to non-diverse events and publications, sometimes even my >own. > >It takes an extra effort to be inclusive, be it simply through inquiry or > >attending more ethnically and racially diverse reading series. > >Be Good, > >David > >well, i gotta back karen up on this; being from boston (or rather newton, >the "golden ghetto" of the greater boston area) i can attest to the sharp >divisions in neighborhoods --more so than in SF or NYC. however, there are >other forms of racism, such as in the Twin Cities where everything's >supposed to be so nicey nice. the neighborhoods aren't as sharply divided, >but people are almost wilfully naive and want to deny difference wherever >they find it. _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 21:40:06 GMT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joan Houlihan Subject: Re: get the wagons ina circle: re BOSTON Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Thanks for listing out all of the Boston poetry scenes you remember. Blacksmith House is a great place--also Tapas (was) and Waterstones (was). Don't forget Trident Cafe and Ploughshares in Cambridge--and yes, Stone Soup has been around for ages (T.T. The Bear's is another "get up and read your stuff" venue). MIT has been sponsoring some great readings lately, and, of course, Harvard. I personally don't buy into the idea that only academia--or, only NON-academia--is the "real" place of poetry. It's everywhere. I agree with you completely that: "...the Work at work... that is the center.... Poetry is the center. The scene is uneven...lacks uniformity & is various in form... a cosmos." I would not wish it otherwise. >From: Michael Franco >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: get the wagons ina circle: re BOSTON >Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 14:57:40 EDT > >Having taken a few days or so to let this swirl in my mind I think that >aside >from my annoyance at the previous blanket dismissal of the Festival---- >----which did its work ...there was good bad & lame by known & unknown >...(remember one of the featured west-coast readers going on for 45 minutes >when every one else was cutting back to a poem or two???) to wonderful >moments like Windy Kramer's or Dan Bouchard's reading (which show his work >to >be Moving) Scalapino or Hejinian ...or Lease's short lovely burst or >Gander's >or... or...or... >& having produced Word of Mouth on my own for ten years I know what Aaron K >does / did in setting all of this into motion & then getting the hell out >of >the way....& just letting what ever happens happen > >I return to my original post and this thought: >if we went through the whole weekend for nothing more than to have been >there >for the Sat night read it was a memorable success... We were there - we >gathered together- we met each other (for some again) shared food poetry >and a remarkable set of readings > >Now lets us return to the other thread running through here & that is the >"Boston" scene & then the whole concept of "scene" > . > >it was great to see the post on the DARK ROOM COLLECTIVE as there were many >many memorable events there... I often scheduled Word of mouth events so >that >I could attend the darkroom.... They had a resident jazz band who were >truly >fine & readers as diverse in their work as one could ask for. > >Both the Blacksmith House reading series (no university affiliation) and >Stone Soup (no university) (Gail Mazer & Jack Powers respectively), have >continued for over two decades... when Bill Corbett was working with Gail >the >series was inspired... & continually swirled differing poetries -both local >& >international- together... Stone Soup has been the only truly open sign up >reading in continuous operation... > >Gian Lombardo's DOLPHIN MOON series ran for years at the Cambridge YMCA >(unfunded- not university affiliated) > >Joe Torra- in addition to working with me for a time at WoM held a very >good >series of readings at his home...mostly locals or Providence/ Ny poets but >all with decent crowds as well as producing the run of lift & I have for >years now done in-home evenings . . .dinner & a reading for 10 or so & just >this past spring started the Oxford street talk series with Gerrit Lansing >& >Diane di Prima as the openers & this will as time goes on continue. > >& then there is Word of Mouth which ran at Tapas for near ten years & >continues in various forms...most recently in residence at Watersone's >Books... > >in the decade at Tapas (which began in 87 but only started to really take >shape in March of 88 with the Duncan Memorial) I presented local & national >poets as well as Reading versions of Spicer's AFTER LORCA [87] A COMPLETE >CORRESPONDENCE - Olson, Corman, Creeley [88] Stein's TENDER BUTTONS & 4 >SAINTS- an afternoon of S. Jonas films of LZ, RD, Wieners, OHara, Whalen, >Ginsberg, Olson etc. from the 66 NET series.... >I met Corbett at the inception of the series he came & read for the opener >and he pushed readers my way for the entire time - & a wide variety of >same...in fact I can not imagine Word of Mouth existing without him; Torra >I >first met there...via Ferrini who was and remains active here; Ange Mlinko >called me up one evening when Leslie Scalapino was reading.... & later that >year came on board to work with me .... Torra started the planning for lift >during a dinner (for Proust if memory serves) Ed Barrett [whose book COMMON >PRELUDES is a small wonder for many of us; Christopher Sawyer-Laucanno, >Patricia Pruitt, Dan Bouchard, Joe Lease, (another early meeting via Cid >Corman) Robert Pinsky, Askhold Melnyczuk [AGNI] & Lombardo who is now >producing a prose poem mag called KEY(SATCH)le, Gerrit Lansing was as he >remains a key source & frequent guest, Fanny Howe (a resident then). Gerald >Burns was a huge source & friend over the years he lived here & always >pushed >the series.... the composer Eli Yarden, artists Katha Seidman & Ben Watkins >& >renaissance Man Thorpe Feidt -all contributed as they continue to do to >the >scene... >There were readings by Blaser, Creeley, di Prima, Eshleman, Irby, Mackey, >Waldman, Gander, Elmslie, Drucker. . .I could go on & on see LINGO 7 [On >Boston] for a more extensive list; or for work from this scene as I see ia >portion of it see TALISMAN 16, (fall 1996). > >The scene has ebbed and flowed as it continues to. if there is a center it >its the very lack of a center- which those I know best greatly enjoy. A >large >number of us have no university affiliations at all (Torra & I both wait >tables for $$). & if there is a poetics (& I would argue that there is >whilst >Torra or Corbett would be vehement that there is not) it is in the primacy >of >the Work of the work. Simply: either it is interesting or not- regardless >of >its form. For me the currency is challenge & learning...i.e. am I /do I - >schools theories et al are meaningless. But the Work at work... that is the >center.... Poetry is the center. The scene is uneven...lacks uniformity & >is >various in form... a cosmos. >If you need personalities with clout (I don't) there would be Corbett's >dinner table to supply sustenance ... from Auster to Cooledge to S Heaney >to >Ashbery. Or there would be the figure of Guston...the example of his >working >(see Corbett's Guston book). >Wieners, Olson, Lansing, Jonas, Blaser, Spicer, (all spent time here) are >all claimed presences (and for me Duncan) > >people, like poetries, come and go- as does energy. there are weeks when >nothing is happening and others when there is a reading to be at every >night. > >At Word of Mouth I was constant in greeting new faces and attempting to >hook >people up... this is the function of a series as far as I am concerned. > >anyhow all of this is to say that there was and is a scene here. It is a >very >accessible scene for anyone who takes the time to attend the various events >& >to actively participate. > >[I am reminded here that I wrote to Cid Corman in 86 or so that I could not >get a reading here.. he told me to stop carping & start a reading series] > >In my public work here I am keenly aware of the university presence ...& of >its very narrow leanings. This is nothing new. I am also aware that there >is >another path (I invited Helen Vendler to speak at the Duncan Memorial as >indeed I should have... & she in turn should have spoken: But of that I >have >no control . . . history will. > >Again what is not here what ignores what is here is of no interest. > >Each scene as each poem as each Theory is an ACT of creation. made up. >constantly remade & redefined & constant in its need for same. the rest you >can have. > > >Corbett says later in the lift interview: > > What are the poems ? What are we talking about, What are we looking at? > >lets start here... > > > > > Again the common bond between us is THE WORK its creation and the daily >living that enables that work. I cannot say this too often. > > > > All best >Michael Franco > > >PSS >this thought re the "obscenity riddled phone messages/calls.... as we all >stand huddled over the romance of "a scene" we might do well to wonder in >a >real way -as we recall those scenes of the past, if we could actually >tolerate the real of such. Jacques...can you imagine the call you might... >might???!!! WOULD have received from Spicer - had your comments addressed >San >Francisco???? The caller that left an unidentified message should be >cursed >-further- with writers block .... the "other caller" whose time and >intimacy >accosted you... spoke out from what you mistake as a malaise > >MF > >all best > >Michael Franco _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 17:41:59 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Magee Subject: Re: thoughts on BoPo and points distant In-Reply-To: <199908122105.RAA106922@dept.english.upenn.edu> from "Al Filreis" at Aug 12, 99 05:05:16 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit According to Al Filreis: > > I agree with most of what you say, Mike--especially about the Philadelphia > scene as a possible counterexample. But I don't agree that it has been > "pretty accidental." Some convergences are chances, to be sure; but most > of all it's all been consicous willed hard work (including, significantly, > your own). Your own Combo didn't just happen. It was to some perhaps > crucial degree "made possible" by a lot of things and conditions already > (by then) in place. Same with PhillyTalks, inventive as that project of > Louis' has been. Yes, yes - absolutely. I didn't mean to imply that what's going on in Philly is all just happenstance. Sorry if I did. No, I mean, the effort on the part of so many people - the hours and concentration devoted - have been incredible. I suppose my musing on its "accidental" nature had more to do with the ways of the universe (a fuzzy sense that it could easily have happened otherwise or not at all) than with an accurate attempt to describe how the community *happened*. While I'm here again, I'll say that, anti-academicism aside, there were professors at Penn and Temple who got behind Writers House and the philly poetry scene generally early and forcefully, most notably Al himself, but also Bob Lucid, Greg Djanikian, Herman Beavers, Farah Griffin (Herman, being the one, incidentally, who introduced me to Mackey's work). I should say too that Writers House has never been just a poetry venue but is enaged in all sorts of writing and social intiatives and is open to the public, which makes it all the more valuable as a place for poets. -m. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 18:03:08 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Patrick F. Durgin" Subject: Re: Village Voice POLYVERSE review In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" What's new about the NAP? You said it yourself, and I thunk it befo- "Polyvocalism" In my humble, monlithicist opining I say, EVERYONE READING THIS OUGHT TO READ LEE ANN BROWN'S BOOK! The finest thing this year. Patrick F. Durgin At 12:20 AM 8/13/99 -0400, you wrote: >Wednesday's Village Voice runs a lukewarm or even unfavorable >review of Lee Ann Brown's ~Polyverse,~ filled with gratuitous innuendo >about Language Poetry. The reviewer is named Thad Ziolkowski. > >He doesn't wait any longer than ~the first sentence~ to mention Charles >(Bernstein), who selected ~Polyverse~ for the "prestigious" New >American Poetry Series, and to begin casting veiled aspersions against >him. We wouldn't have expected ~Polyverse~ as Charles' choice, >Ziolkowski says: we would have expected "ironic, warily analytical >work". Charles, here cast as papal, bishopric, or censorious by >Ziolkowkski, should have been more likely to give ~that~ his "imprimatur". > > >Ziolkowski criticizes Brown, basically, as too much a patchwork quilt of >styles. (An assessment which Sun & Moon's own amazon.com Book >Description is not, at a more positive slant, far afield from: "many forms >and possibilities. Taking its cue from a wide range of modern and >postmodern poetics, Brown's work . . .") ~Polyverse,~ he says, fails in >echoing New York School, Beat, and Language, without synthesizing >those influences. (Nor does Z. entertain the inkling that syncretism is not >the only solution, that the ~Poly-~ in ~Polyverse~ may actually mean >something, and that the segregated stylistics Brown leaves behind is >~more~ in tune with an aesthetic of polyvocalism.) > >He finally treats this "thirtysomething" poet (his agism) as if, as I read it, >this were a beginner's problem that she will hopefully work out in time >("But then maybe the orgy among all these poetic influences is just >getting warmed up"). > >If it weren't for Brown eroticizing her Language-like "proliferation of >grammatical terms", Language Poetry by itself is just "lifeless automatic >pilot". > >He accuses Brown of seeming "dated, frozen in a sunstruck New >York--circa-1965 atmosphere". Oddly, it's her "references to Whitman, >Mayakovsky, Sappho and Stein" that Ziolkowski particularly singles out >as behind-the-times, but yet when he again cites her eroticism as "What >saves the book from this terminally reverent tendency", he quotes her >lines "She's a minor flirt,/a cloud in trousers" without so much as a blink >of open recognition that "a cloud in trousers", too, is yet another homage >and "reverent tendency" (O'Hara/Mayakovsky). Ziolkowski is left looking >as if he doesn't know he was quoting an appropriation of Brown's, at >cross-purposes, and hence is in contradiction with himself by saying >that what saves the book from a debility is the same debility. > >His attitude may reach its pique when he writes: "You end up wondering >. . . what's particularly new about this New American." Fair question. >Personally, I am left wondering, if he was this global in treating Brown --- >whom ("Brown is . . . goofy in a troubadour-hippie-Fugs way") he >nonetheless seems to enjoy, despite his disparaging slant of praise --- >what kind of harsher polemic The Village Voice would have printed if the >book were indeed "ironic, warily analytical work". > >See: > >http://www.villagevoice.com/arts/9932/ziolkowski.shtml > > k e n n i n g______________________ a newsletter of contemporary poetry______________________________ ______________________http://www.avalon.net/~kenning 418 Brown St. #10, Iowa City, IA 52245, USA _________ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 00:20:36 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tisa Bryant Subject: Re: get the wagons ina circle: re BOSTON Michael, Thank you, you nailed it, summed it up, reminded me that I met Fanny Howe and her daughter Lucien at Word of Mouth. And about the many readings I attended at Blacksmith House, everything you mentioned I remember. Things get distant.... I'm feeling very appreciative right now, and almost, almost, homesick. (winter drove me out, not memories of driving through Southie at night...) This is fast; gotta eat! More....fun....
Having taken a few days or so to let this swirl in my mind I think that aside from my annoyance at the previous blanket dismissal of the Festival---- ----which did its work ...there was good bad & lame by known & unknown ..(remember one of the featured west-coast readers going on for 45 minutes when every one else was cutting back to a poem or two???) to wonderful moments like Windy Kramer's or Dan Bouchard's reading (which show his work to be Moving) Scalapino or Hejinian ...or Lease's short lovely burst or Gander's or... or...or... & having produced Word of Mouth on my own for ten years I know what Aaron K does / did in setting all of this into motion & then getting the hell out of the way....& just letting what ever happens happen I return to my original post and this thought: if we went through the whole weekend for nothing more than to have been there for the Sat night read it was a memorable success... We were there - we gathered together- we met each other (for some again) shared food poetry and a remarkable set of readings Now lets us return to the other thread running through here & that is the "Boston" scene & then the whole concept of "scene" . it was great to see the post on the DARK ROOM COLLECTIVE as there were many many memorable events there... I often scheduled Word of mouth events so that I could attend the darkroom.... They had a resident jazz band who were truly fine & readers as diverse in their work as one could ask for. Both the Blacksmith House reading series (no university affiliation) and Stone Soup (no university) (Gail Mazer & Jack Powers respectively), have continued for over two decades... when Bill Corbett was working with Gail the series was inspired... & continually swirled differing poetries -both local & international- together... Stone Soup has been the only truly open sign up reading in continuous operation... Gian Lombardo's DOLPHIN MOON series ran for years at the Cambridge YMCA (unfunded- not university affiliated) Joe Torra- in addition to working with me for a time at WoM held a very good series of readings at his home...mostly locals or Providence/ Ny poets but all with decent crowds as well as producing the run of lift & I have for years now done in-home evenings . . .dinner & a reading for 10 or so & just this past spring started the Oxford street talk series with Gerrit Lansing & Diane di Prima as the openers & this will as time goes on continue. & then there is Word of Mouth which ran at Tapas for near ten years & continues in various forms...most recently in residence at Watersone's Books... in the decade at Tapas (which began in 87 but only started to really take shape in March of 88 with the Duncan Memorial) I presented local & national poets as well as Reading versions of Spicer's AFTER LORCA [87] A COMPLETE CORRESPONDENCE - Olson, Corman, Creeley [88] Stein's TENDER BUTTONS & 4 SAINTS- an afternoon of S. Jonas films of LZ, RD, Wieners, OHara, Whalen, Ginsberg, Olson etc. from the 66 NET series.... I met Corbett at the inception of the series he came & read for the opener and he pushed readers my way for the entire time - & a wide variety of same...in fact I can not imagine Word of Mouth existing without him; Torra I first met there...via Ferrini who was and remains active here; Ange Mlinko called me up one evening when Leslie Scalapino was reading.... & later that year came on board to work with me .... Torra started the planning for lift during a dinner (for Proust if memory serves) Ed Barrett [whose book COMMON PRELUDES is a small wonder for many of us; Christopher Sawyer-Laucanno, Patricia Pruitt, Dan Bouchard, Joe Lease, (another early meeting via Cid Corman) Robert Pinsky, Askhold Melnyczuk [AGNI] & Lombardo who is now producing a prose poem mag called KEY(SATCH)le, Gerrit Lansing was as he remains a key source & frequent guest, Fanny Howe (a resident then). Gerald Burns was a huge source & friend over the years he lived here & always pushed the series.... the composer Eli Yarden, artists Katha Seidman & Ben Watkins & renaissance Man Thorpe Feidt -all contributed as they continue to do to the scene... There were readings by Blaser, Creeley, di Prima, Eshleman, Irby, Mackey, Waldman, Gander, Elmslie, Drucker. . .I could go on & on see LINGO 7 [On Boston] for a more extensive list; or for work from this scene as I see ia portion of it see TALISMAN 16, (fall 1996). The scene has ebbed and flowed as it continues to. if there is a center it its the very lack of a center- which those I know best greatly enjoy. A large number of us have no university affiliations at all (Torra & I both wait tables for $$). & if there is a poetics (& I would argue that there is whilst Torra or Corbett would be vehement that there is not) it is in the primacy of the Work of the work. Simply: either it is interesting or not- regardless of its form. For me the currency is challenge & learning...i.e. am I /do I - schools theories et al are meaningless. But the Work at work... that is the center.... Poetry is the center. The scene is uneven...lacks uniformity & is various in form... a cosmos. If you need personalities with clout (I don't) there would be Corbett's dinner table to supply sustenance ... from Auster to Cooledge to S Heaney to Ashbery. Or there would be the figure of Guston...the example of his working (see Corbett's Guston book). Wieners, Olson, Lansing, Jonas, Blaser, Spicer, (all spent time here) are all claimed presences (and for me Duncan) people, like poetries, come and go- as does energy. there are weeks when nothing is happening and others when there is a reading to be at every night. At Word of Mouth I was constant in greeting new faces and attempting to hook people up... this is the function of a series as far as I am concerned. anyhow all of this is to say that there was and is a scene here. It is a very accessible scene for anyone who takes the time to attend the various events & to actively participate. [I am reminded here that I wrote to Cid Corman in 86 or so that I could not get a reading here.. he told me to stop carping & start a reading series] In my public work here I am keenly aware of the university presence ...& of its very narrow leanings. This is nothing new. I am also aware that there is another path (I invited Helen Vendler to speak at the Duncan Memorial as indeed I should have... & she in turn should have spoken: But of that I have no control . . . history will. Again what is not here what ignores what is here is of no interest. Each scene as each poem as each Theory is an ACT of creation. made up. constantly remade & redefined & constant in its need for same. the rest you can have. Corbett says later in the lift interview: What are the poems ? What are we talking about, What are we looking at? lets start here... Again the common bond between us is THE WORK its creation and the daily living that enables that work. I cannot say this too often. All best Michael Franco PSS this thought re the "obscenity riddled phone messages/calls.... as we all stand huddled over the romance of "a scene" we might do well to wonder in a real way -as we recall those scenes of the past, if we could actually tolerate the real of such. Jacques...can you imagine the call you might... might???!!! WOULD have received from Spicer - had your comments addressed San Francisco???? The caller that left an unidentified message should be cursed -further- with writers block .... the "other caller" whose time and intimacy accosted you... spoke out from what you mistake as a malaise MF all best Michael Franco
========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 17:22:34 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume" Subject: Re: POLYVERSE & the apophasis of Bernstein MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Tsk, tsk. Thanks for that post, Jeffrey. For an enthusiastic take on _Polyverse_, please see my review in the current issue of Jacket. I don't mention Charles Bernstein once. http://www.jacket.zip.com.au/jacket08/index.html Patrick Pritchett > -----Original Message----- > From: Jeffrey Jullich [SMTP:JJULLICH@CLAVEN.GSB.COLUMBIA.EDU] > Sent: Thursday, August 12, 1999 10:20 PM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Village Voice POLYVERSE review > > Wednesday's Village Voice runs a lukewarm or even unfavorable > review of Lee Ann Brown's ~Polyverse,~ filled with gratuitous innuendo > about Language Poetry. The reviewer is named Thad Ziolkowski. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 20:47:35 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Neff Organization: Web Del Sol Subject: Issue 5 of 5_Trope MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit See David Buuck, and other bleeding edge work in this issue of 5_Trope. http://webdelsol.com/5_trope There is truly, nothing quite like 5T. Criticism is welcome, please send to editor, Gary Lutz: LeeGlee@aol.com 5T doesn't use gratuitous sex to promote itself, only necessary and tasteful sex. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 23:11:49 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Matt Kirschenbaum Subject: Blake Archive's August Update Comments: To: humanist@kcl.ac.uk, H-CLC@h-net.msu.edu, H-MMEDIA@h-net.msu.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" 12 August 1999 The William Blake Archive is pleased to announce the publication of new electronic editions of copies B and U of Blake's _Songs of Innocence__. Copies B and U are a study in contrasts, yet both are from the earliest printings of this book. Copy B, now in the Rosenwald Collection, Library of Congress, was printed with fifteen other copies of _Innocence_ in 1789, four of which were later joined with _Experience_ impressions, printed in 1794, to form _Songs of Innocence and of Experience_ copies B, C--which is in the Archive--D, and E. Unlike many of these early copies of _Innocence_, copy B still consists of all 31 plates originally composed and executed for _Innocence_. Like them, however, it was printed in a raw sienna ink on 17 leaves and exemplifies Blake's early printing and coloring style. The plates were wiped of their plate borders, the illustrations very lightly washed in watercolors, and the texts left unwashed. This mode of presentation, along with printing both sides of the leaves to create facing pages, emphasized the prints as book pages rather than prints or paintings. Good examples of printing and coloring illuminated plates to look like minatures can be seen in _Songs_ copy Z, also in the Archive. _Innocence_ copy U, from the Houghton Library, Harvard University, is an excellent example of printing illuminated plates to look like prints. Like etchings and engravings, they were printed on one side of the leaf in black ink and left uncolored. Copy U, which was printed with untraced copy V, had been dated c. 1814, because of some stylistic similarities it shares with illuminated works assumed to have been produced around that time. But, in fact, copy U is the _first_ copy of _Innocence_ printed. The presence of a unique first state for "Infant Joy" proves this sequence; the bottom part of the "J" in the title is missing in all extant impressions, but here it extends into the flower. Copy U was printed before copy B and all other early copies; the ink color, printing style (recto only), and lack of hand coloring suggest a date of printing before Blake had developed his special ways of producing his illuminated books and instead repeated styles and techniques long familiar to him as a commercial engraver. Both electronic editions have newly edited SGML-encoded texts and new images scanned and color-corrected from first-generation 4x5" transparencies; they are each fully searchable for both text and images and supported by the Inote and ImageSizer applications described in our previous updates. With the publication of these two titles, the Archive now contains 35 copies of 18 separate books, including at least one copy of every one of Blake's works in illuminated printing except the 100 plates of _Jerusalem_ (forthcoming). Morris Eaves, Robert N. Essick, and Joseph Viscomi, editors Matthew G. Kirschenbaum, Technical Editor The William Blake Archive ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 23:53:23 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lynn Miller Subject: Sugar Sugar MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit @ Some time ago there was a thread of thought about words lost and found, and a cluster of posts around this, to which I'd like to contribute the following image-text found yesterday poking around the German stacks looking for Rosa Luxemburg's Politische Schriften vols. 1-3 at the Cleveland Public Library: Cover Image: Two what appear to be golden retriever puppies surrounded in a field of flowers lifting (pointing) their paws toward a baby bunny rabbit. Cover Text: Crown Point Graphics / Carmel, IN 46032 NC 763 "Pansy Patrol" (Original Art Work by Diane Querry / Litho Canada. Inside this card is the following handwritten message: "Write to me: Olessya Dianova Str. Sortavalskya, x(The same mistake twice, but this means nothing)5/2-160 Petrozavodsk, RUSSIA 185026" [Several quickly dashed lines resembling strands of hair separate the address from the message] "My address is on the envelope as well. There are the pictures of you when we we in Guptols. Should have given you one of xxme But I completely forgot, I'll send it to you later. Bye! Let's both have xxsave trips. Dear Naomi! Sorry we couldn't see each other again Before we both leave, But I'll remember all the fun times we had spent together Hope you'll have a safe trip to Ohio, and school there will help you to Become the greatest musician ever. Don't forget to send me the copy of the novel when you finish it. I am gonna miss you. [hand-drawn heart]Olessya" Inside the card is a snapshot of the "greatest musician ever": hair falling well below her shoulders, wearing a blue flower print sleeveless blouse and jean shorts. A small purple coin purse hangs from a strap around her neck. Her full smile into the camera appears only casually posed, and her eyes reflect that red glare that happens with flashbulbs. A couple of Russian letters from a billboard or shop sign are all that glimmers through the pitchblack backdrop. Finders keepers. Losers weepers. I'd like to nominate these two click chicks as honorary (allegorical) Armandistas, after the spirit of the Armand among many others that emerges in the pages of some recent scholarship in the U.S.: Jane McDermid & Anna Hllyar, WOMEN AND WORK IN RUSSIA 1880-1930 (Longman, 1998) Barbara Evans Clements, BOLSHEVIK WOMEN (Cambridge University Press, 1997). Barbara Evans Clements, DAUGHTERS OF REVOLUTION (Harlan Davidson, Arlington Heights, Illinois, 1994) Clements, Engel and Worobec, eds., RUSSIA'S WOMEN (University of California Press, 1991) The history being written here locates a feminism with the Bolshevik party that appears to have shared, in the thinking behind a project like Zhenotdel, which at first glance anyway appears to bear some resemblance to the literacy campaign conducted in Cuba in the early 60s, with Luxemburg's (mistaken?) view that "the revolutionary party should come much closer to encompassing the organized working class in its entirety." (Editor's introduction to Rosa Luxemburg Speaks, i.e. "From the whirlwind and the storm, out of the fire and flow of the mass strike and the street fighting, rise again, like Venus from the foam, fresh, young, powerful, buoyant trade unions.") The feminism that developed through an educational project like Zhenotdel and a newspaper like Rabonitsa (Working Woman) declared itself on the side of the working class and oppressed nationalities in pre-revolutionary Russia from within an organization whose legendary combative intransigence has perhaps overshadowed other strands of thought and activity which that organization was apparently able to accomodate, if not encourage and promote. L. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 00:35:17 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: the best poem, the very best MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII ==\==\ LOST. AND TIRED. IN THESE DARK HILLS, PUNCH CARDS PUNCH CARDS LOST IN TRANSMISSIONS, DISMAL ACROSS DIRECTORIES, FLAYED OF MEANING AND IMAGE AND SYMBOL, AS IF THE NIGHTS WERE ALWAYS DULLED, THE WEATHER ________________________________________________ /LOST. | | [] | |[] | | [] | |111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111| |22[222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222| |[]33]3333333333333333333333333333333333333333333| |444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444| |555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555| |6[6666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666| |777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777| |8888[8888888888888888888888888888888888888888888| |999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999| |________________________________________________| AND TIRED. DO YOU KNOW TIRED, DARK. THERE ARE RHYTHMS, CYCLES IN THESE DARK AND TIRED HILLS. DO YOU KNOW SUCH REPETITION CRYING TO THE WORLD OF MEANING? LOST. ________________________________________________ /AND TIRED. | |] ] ] ]]] | | ] ] | | ] | |]11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111| |222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222| |3333]3333]33333333333333333333333333333333333333| |44]44444]444444444444444444444444444444444444444| |5]55555]5555555555555555555555555555555555555555| |66 AND BROKEN AS LANGUAGE STOPS ITSELF, TRACKED HARD IN TRADITION, LOOKING FOR THE WORDING IN THE NOISE, LOOKING FOR THE MEANING IN THE WORD. NEXT TO DEATH, WE'RE ________________________________________________ /LOST. | | ] | |]] | | ]] | |111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111| |22]222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222| |]33]]3333333333333333333333333333333333333333333| |444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444| |555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555| |6]6666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666| |777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777| |8888]8888888888888888888888888888888888888888888| |999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999| |________________________________________________| AND TIRED. NEXT TO DEATH, IT'S WHAT IS MEANT WHEN TEXT IS LOST, WORDS GRIND DOWN INTO SOUND AS IF NOTHING, WE ARE AFRAID OF THIS, WE PLACE WORLDS AND WORDS IN THE WAY, DO YOU KNOW ALL WORLDS ARE WORDS? SO LOST. ________________________________________________ /AND TIRED. | |] ] ] ]]] | | ] ] | | ] | |]1111 ________________________________________________ /LOST. | | ] | |]] | | ]] | |111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111| |22]222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222| |]33]]3333333333333333333333333333333333333333333| |444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444| |555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555| |6]6666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666| |777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777| |8888]8888888888888888888888888888888888888888888| |999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999| |________________________________________________| ________________________________________________ /AND TIRED. | |] ] ] ]]] | | ] ] | | ] | |]1111 THEY CLUSTER, CLUTTER, MAKE HOUSES OUT OF LINES AND LETTERS. YOU WILL BELIEVE THROUGH THEM, THE UNUTTER- ABLE UTTERANCE OF THE WORD. SAY IT, NOTHING HAPPENS. ALL IS ON THE PLANE OF SPEECH; WHAT PHENOMENA FOLLOW SKITTER ACROSS UNKNOWN CARDS, ADDRESSES, MACHINES, LOST. AND TIRED. _________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 02:18:29 -0400 Reply-To: shana Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: shana Subject: Re: 19th C. Po&sie MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mike-- Another Baudelaire en face edition is _Les Fleurs du Mal et Oeuvres Choisies_/_Flowers of Evil and Other Works_, a Dover edition, copyright 1992, translated by Wallace Fowlie. It was originally a Bantam book, first published in 1963 or 1964. Fowlie's translations are *okay*, but a little pretentious. Then again, he wrote a book called, _Rimbaud and Jim Morrison: The Rebel as Poet_. Stop laughing. Anyway, the book. It's a purple and yellow atrocity, I picked it up at a Barnes and Noble book annex a few years ago. Some of my NYU French department colleagues had it, too, not sure if it's Baudelaire standard or just secret among a few of us. It's better than the Matthews edition, I think, but that may just be bias toward Fowlie's ultra-impressive endnotes. Shana http://www.bway.net/~shana ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 08:45:47 +0100 Reply-To: suantrai@iol.ie Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "L. MacMahon and T.R. Healy" Subject: Apologies for cross posting: Wild Honey Press Books Comments: To: Brit'n'Irish , poetryetc@listbot.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Apologies for cross posting. Here are some recent titles. I'll give a bare list first, then details below. All the books are hand sewn, with an illustrated card cover, and printed on a deskjet. (The cover for Holding Patterns is by Tom Raworth.) I dislike superlatives, so have confined myself to simple remarks on form followed by a quotation from the relevant book. (I suspect the formatting of the quotes will be a little mangled by e-mail.) This should not be read as a lack of enthusiasm on my part. Making books by hand is a labour of love and one needs to be absolutely mad about a book to do it. In the case of these books I am. As with every other poetry press that ever was, your support is sorely needed would be very much appreciated. Visa/Mastercard accepted. Those outside Ireland/UK please contact me to sort out postage. A bulk price can be arranged for anyone wishing to really treat themselves. A Small Book of Songs - Billy Mills Without Asylum - Trevor Joyce Scales - Randolph Healy 20/20 Vision - Pete Smith Sheep Dip - John Kinsella Travelling Mercies - Guy Birchard Holding Patterns - Susan M. Schultz Best wishes Randolph Healy A Small Book of Songs, Billy Mills, 64 pages, A5. ISBN 1 903090 01 6. £7/$12 A book in five sections, selections from which have been published by West Coast Line, Talisman, Shearsman, Longhouse and Oasis. proportion is everything: tower & square rhyme an instinct the ideal city a single memory internalized streets necessary the garden shimmers step in the river feel stability & flux words bend under such pressure Without Asylum, Trevor Joyce, 18cm x 11 cm, 16 pages, cover illustration by author, ISBN 1 903090 05 9, £2/$4. A poem in twenty one quatrains and one line. shelter from the fall asylum from the edge a luminous domain unbounded seldom they relate why the innocent whose mouth is like a bowl of blood blurts words already Scales, Randolph Healy, 20 pp, A5, ISBN 1 903090 04 0, £3.50/$6 A poem in 14 sections. II what seem to be specks of dust resolve a past pierced by harmonies desolate fertile **** feeding on itself among a procession of icy bodies cloud seas lands turning the summed light of billions sensitive damaging two refractions one internal reflection a city cut cabochon as a gem energy in transit *** streets reduced by distance to a brilliant glaze where limbs and torsos tread light **** freedom chance tensing and releasing in response to microslips along res ipsa loquitur relatively although not absolutely stick bone reed metal graphite 20/20 Vision, Pete Smith, 24 pp, 14 cm x 14 cm, ISBN 1 903090 07 5 A sequence of 20 poems of 20 lines each. Flags at half and pistols at twenty. Beech-mast still pelts down. The pace stretching our short days. Evening out the stress bumps. The tenor of morning an oratorio. Another key where vibrato widens. Spilt silt trickle spate estuary. Semis, demis and demi-semis all a-quavering. Just because there's a period doesn't mean an end. The idea of body doesn't remove clothes. Where there's a will there's a fisticuffs. Way out west; way up north; weighed down. A National Day of Morning: noon at midnight. Mist of discharge fogs a dawn. I half-doubt Thomas would have rhymed that. It's bigger than a frisbee, bigger than New York. If a poem had enough combustion. Eiderdown. Dander up. Relaxation always a middling. The reflexologist said, "You remind me of myself." The twentieth line presages an abyss, of sorts. Sheep Dip, John Kinsella, 24 pp, 7 cm x 14.5 cm, ISBN 1 903 090 02 4, £2/$4. A poem in 41 quatrains. my total hate, the rank stands of tanning trees, the protected species paddling in the dam, the demarcations between the giddy crops and firebreaks. Which is the Karma of being stranded on an island that's bigger than the ocean it wallows in, and you're trying to read your future in the tepid entrails of sheep that seem to be of normal size despite their owners being as large as bloody giants, and one-eyed. To drive beyond the eye and see the corporate beast thrash about, crushing your neighbours as one by one the deadline falls on their pathetic Travellin Mercies, Guy Birchard, 32pp, 16cm x 14.5 cm, ISBN 1 903090 00 8, £3.50/$6 WY handsome leathery elderly ladies of Lusk between Deadwood and Cheyenne orient us putting in crop recalling bean farmers in Fort Laramie's saloon hunch and grin CO down in Denver among silver limpets, najas fish around his shins Crivelli's Christopher relieves us We followed the blue road in the antique Rand McNally whithersoever regardless of more recent constructions. True, the gate spanning the road posted ADMITTANCE RESTRICTED, and more blithe than obedient we gave it short pause. It only took Security a half mile anyway to pull us over and turn us back, acknowledging nothing of the blue road on our map. Down the road at the Loaf&Jug the girl explains everything, "Martin- Marietta? oh, they make missiles&stuff in there..." We never saw over that hill. The Kid's double-action Rye $15. 1880 .41 Thunderer Holding Patterns, Susan M. Schultz, 24 pp, A5, ISBN 1 903090 03 2, £3.50/$6 Antigone was a beached heiress intent on returning Gilligan to his life of suburban haplessness 'til the speech coach knocked off her tongue (which was never mother) and syllables entered stage below like steam from Chilean baths, assumptions chilled as a corps of Marines building bridges over crossed rivers. Too much thought stifles paralysis, don't you think, enabling mental blocks to walk planks. I heard the splash, never associating it with fundaments of faith, the aegis that sounds like Jesus, forbidden conclusiveness in the name of a better or more bitter) ending for his readers' response. Drug store cushions absorb more shock than that; headphones lifted by athletes contain less music than foreplay of static, sound becoming something more or less like guilty silence. Redeem your pawns at the door, for all exchange is not inheritance, these angled communiqués borne out in bottles hijinxed by ships that carry human cargo until carcasses recall Carcassone and history returns as a mare running ovals, straitlaced executives turning holidays into hectares of dubious proclivity, not knowing one agenda to triumph when waterfalls vanish in valleys where the air is admonishment. Visit the Sound Eye website at: http://indigo.ie/~tjac/sound_eye_hme.htm or find more Irish writing at: http://www.nd.edu/~ndr/issues/ndr7/contents.html ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 09:44:28 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maz881@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Village Voice POLYVERSE review MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit dear Jeffrey Jullich that phrase that thad uses to describe bernstein's supposed wants ("ironic, warily analytical work") might be more applicable to thad's own book, my son the arsonist. maybe thad was bummed charles didn't pick him. i guess i mean i didn't find the review all that negative. BillL <> ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 15:50:07 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Subject: Samuel Delany Reading MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This is sure to be of interest to the list. Chris -- Samuel Delany Reading Tuesday, August 17th at 7:30pm Modern Times Bookstore 888 Valencia St. @ 20th St. San Francisco Call (415)282-9246 for more info ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 10:26:37 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gerald Schwartz Subject: Re: I Guess I'll Say It Flat Out MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Re: A H Bramhall's piece of 11 Aug Every time I read the word "Boston" in this piece, I found myself easily substituting the words "Albany" and "Syracuse". They seem to fit too well. Gerald ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 05:05:41 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Douglas Organization: Sun Moon Books Subject: Re: Village Voice POLYVERSE review Comments: cc: djmess@sunmoon.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jeffrey: Thank you for the good analysis of a very wrong-headed review. I truly appreciate it. Douglas Messerli, Sun & Moon Press. Jeffrey Jullich wrote: > > Wednesday's Village Voice runs a lukewarm or even unfavorable > review of Lee Ann Brown's ~Polyverse,~ filled with gratuitous innuendo > about Language Poetry. The reviewer is named Thad Ziolkowski. > > He doesn't wait any longer than ~the first sentence~ to mention Charles > (Bernstein), who selected ~Polyverse~ for the "prestigious" New > American Poetry Series, and to begin casting veiled aspersions against > him. We wouldn't have expected ~Polyverse~ as Charles' choice, > Ziolkowski says: we would have expected "ironic, warily analytical > work". Charles, here cast as papal, bishopric, or censorious by > Ziolkowkski, should have been more likely to give ~that~ his "imprimatur". > > Ziolkowski criticizes Brown, basically, as too much a patchwork quilt of > styles. (An assessment which Sun & Moon's own amazon.com Book > Description is not, at a more positive slant, far afield from: "many forms > and possibilities. Taking its cue from a wide range of modern and > postmodern poetics, Brown's work . . .") ~Polyverse,~ he says, fails in > echoing New York School, Beat, and Language, without synthesizing > those influences. (Nor does Z. entertain the inkling that syncretism is not > the only solution, that the ~Poly-~ in ~Polyverse~ may actually mean > something, and that the segregated stylistics Brown leaves behind is > ~more~ in tune with an aesthetic of polyvocalism.) > > He finally treats this "thirtysomething" poet (his agism) as if, as I read it, > this were a beginner's problem that she will hopefully work out in time > ("But then maybe the orgy among all these poetic influences is just > getting warmed up"). > > If it weren't for Brown eroticizing her Language-like "proliferation of > grammatical terms", Language Poetry by itself is just "lifeless automatic > pilot". > > He accuses Brown of seeming "dated, frozen in a sunstruck New > York--circa-1965 atmosphere". Oddly, it's her "references to Whitman, > Mayakovsky, Sappho and Stein" that Ziolkowski particularly singles out > as behind-the-times, but yet when he again cites her eroticism as "What > saves the book from this terminally reverent tendency", he quotes her > lines "She's a minor flirt,/a cloud in trousers" without so much as a blink > of open recognition that "a cloud in trousers", too, is yet another homage > and "reverent tendency" (O'Hara/Mayakovsky). Ziolkowski is left looking > as if he doesn't know he was quoting an appropriation of Brown's, at > cross-purposes, and hence is in contradiction with himself by saying > that what saves the book from a debility is the same debility. > > His attitude may reach its pique when he writes: "You end up wondering > . . . what's particularly new about this New American." Fair question. > Personally, I am left wondering, if he was this global in treating Brown --- > whom ("Brown is . . . goofy in a troubadour-hippie-Fugs way") he > nonetheless seems to enjoy, despite his disparaging slant of praise --- > what kind of harsher polemic The Village Voice would have printed if the > book were indeed "ironic, warily analytical work". > > See: > > http://www.villagevoice.com/arts/9932/ziolkowski.shtml ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 14 Aug 1999 00:53:05 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Jullich Subject: cut-ups / "homosexualization of the New York avant-garde" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-7 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable >>> Mark Prejsnar 08/10/99 07:13pm >>> wrote: >Jacques, >I would be interested to hear what you feel connects the >=22homosexualization of the New York avant-garde=22 with cut-up = >technique.... >(beyond the fact that some gay guys did it....) --Mark Prejsnar ---------------------------------------------------------------------------= ------------- Mark, Although I don=27t know what Jacques=27 answer would be to that question, = . . . I would like to agree with him about =22the dangers of historical = decontextualization=22, and that, to name as he did only Burroughs, Cage, = and Ashbery, =22homosexualization=22 is significant for the invention of = cut-ups. Personally, I=27ve already had a similar impression concerning = the =22homosexualization=22 of Warhol=27s, Johns=27, and Rauschenberg=27s = appropriations, in relation to the genesis of Pop. (Not to forget: the = theoretics of cut-ups=27 historical period were also hothouse to =22Notes = on Camp,=22 whose own =22homosexualization=22 treated sexuality and art = style as self-evident equivalents. ) Why I feel that way, though, may be = thin ice to explain.=20 I take it from your (supportive) tone that you mean your question to be = =7Ein defense=7E of those =22gay guys=22, . . . as though Jacques=27 = telescoping of the period into one =22-ization=22 were presumption, like = talking =22Velvet Mafia=22 or shortchanging heterosexualized contemporaries= . But at the same time I=27d like to submit that your =22beyond the fact = that some gay guys did it=22 may have a trivializing casualness about it, = . . . as though there were always =22gay guys=22 around, as it seems = nowadays, and no less than three all at once independentally but coincident= ally being instrumental in the creation of a new art form were at best = some statistical fluke. As though the branding iron of idiosyncratic = desire did not leave its stamp on art. Back to =22historical decontextuali= zation=22: those three were still of a generation which couldn=27t yet = even be =7Enamed=7E as =22gay=22, so their consensus in all engineering = this same new art form into being is to the contrary rather remarkable. = If a new genre were to emerge from a similarly exclusionary group of, say, = Jews, ---or =7Elesbians=7E rather than =22guys=22=21 =AF it might be more = striking and appear instantly sensible for someone to begin one of those = typical explorations of Jewish Mysticist antecedents, or such. That said, let me get myself into more hot water by attempting to explain = the parallel I find between the Warhol-Johns-Rauschenberg =22homosexualizat= ion=22 and Pop, and between the Burroughs-Cage-Ashbery =22homosexualization= =22 and cut-ups. Proviso: I may be confusing psychology for ontology, and = I=27m almost definitely erring into what Jacques warns against as = =22analogical . . . significance.=22 (However, given the metaphoric = nature of =22historical contextualization=27s=22 hidden similes themselves,= some tropological thinking seems allowable.) Here=A2s the point: The xerox-like image transfer methods (silk screening) of the Pop artists = =7Ereproduced=7E images without devising new ones; similarly, that graphic = form has its literary equivalent in cut-ups, which also, if not per se = reproducing, re-=7Earrange=7E a pre-existing text without introducing new = matter. The (perhaps heretically naive) link my mind draws is---to =7Ebiological=7E= reproduction, or procreation. (There is some slippage of terms here, as = we use the word =22reproduction=22 for both productive biological = parturition and the =7Enon-productive=7E =22mechanical reproduction=22 we = know since Benjamin.) To blurt it out---the figure of the homosexual is, = in biological terms, non-productive (non-reproducing), and the =22homosexua= lization=22 artwork of those cut-up/Pop progenitors was also non-productive= (=22reproduction=22). If we suspend disbelief and try to re-imagine from = the perspective of those =2750=27s art climate, =22original=22 creation = would have been seen as an indispensable criterion of =7Ea man=27s=7E art. The necessary absurdity that I=A2m figuring into this logic is the cliche = that =22an artwork is like a child to the artist=22; and I am of course = assuming for the sake of this stereotyped argumentation the fallacy of the = =7Echildless=7E homosexual, a fallacy which, however, in the case of these = particular six artists named in the =22homosexualization=22, happens to = hold true (perhaps not accidentally). Hence---I suppose another way of putting this (increasingly embarassing) = notion is that: the homosexual does not =7Eadd=7E to the world. (Although = an unpalatable axiom, and patently objectionable on the level of the real, = it seems fair to assert in the spirit of dogma such as =22Ce sexe qui = n=27est pas un=22 or other post-modern metaphysics.) In these terms, the = =22gay guys=22 behind cut-ups and Pop reproduction, despite their = incontestable contribution, did not =7Eadd=7E to the world or the bulk of = existing imagery/text in the same way that a work of =22original=22 = production takes up space. (=7EEurope=7E had =22really=22 not added = anything to =7EBeryl of the Biplane;=7E it=27s commutative, not additive.) As far as cut-ups=27 earlier larval stage of =7Ecollage,=7E I believe = Wayne Koestenbaum has commented on the sublimated male-male =22bonding=22 = that Picasso and Braque acted out in its invention and manufacture = (Koestenbaum, =7EDouble Talk: The Erotics of Male Literary Collaboration,= =7E which should perhaps be required reading in relation to =22beyond the = fact=22: same-sex literary collaboration may =7Ealready=7E be an a priori = =22homosexualization,=22 regardless of the participants=27 actual sexual = preference, according to Koestenbaum=27s thesis). I hope this doesn=27t seem like Pound on Social Credit. I mean it as = Queer Theory,---which is always speculative. Jeffrey Jullich ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 12:50:56 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: A H Bramhall Subject: Elijah "Pumpsie" Green At BoPo MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Being quite civilized on the surface: the neighborhoods were lines not to cross from Boston, and, hell, as a Yankees fan in 1978 even owned 1959, if memory serves me right, a full 12 years after Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby--but from the poetic community I know their isn't even a subtle form. segregated and everyone knew which None from live. a "Boston Sucks" T-shirt, until from Boston, this post caught my sister take it back, but geez. Be rather than racism, that at times leads to non-diverse events and publications, sometimes even my own. my mother found out about looks bad by comparison made, my eye of racism. racist place I've ever the uncrossable Maybe which Nada. it's changed since I left The ideas of neighborhoods being segregated and knowing I guess I'll say it flat out: Boston is the most lines segregated and everyone knew relates to just about any major metropolis, including San Francisco and maybe Boston just. it's 15 years ago, but I kind of doubt it. Good. simply ignorance I'm not no matter how racist I think simply through inquiry or attending New York, each of which I've lived in, the latter for most of my Granted, I went lived. there to New York & on to San Francisco-so It takes an extra effort to be inclusive, be it horror stories from many former residents, and, back to Instead, again, baseball, the Red Sox were even the last team to integrate Instead, again, more ethnically and racially diverse reading series, Pumpsie Green in Zip. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 21:59:12 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: J Kuszai Subject: New Chapbooks by Cope and Farrell Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" AUGUST 1999 2 New Chapbooks from Meow Press Versiones Vertiges by Stephen Cope 20p $6 from VERSIONES VERTIGES: Salmon in the Breakers October 1989, how pure and big a wound, the branches in their homelessness, the sea is still the sea, but we are dust or will be, the president is dead, the unequivocal seagulls, Scardenelli, you're not mad, the turning of the earth against the sun, once upon a time, a Cherokee, a whiskey sour, bluebird dead by now as its always been a bluebird, this is love, in a photo, waning like an affect, in a dream, the cigarettes, it takes three to make a story, at Pleasure Point the surfers, & I will never die, out of season, 4 X 4, over & over again, but no-one wants a raga, 90210, the wave paced at its interval, take my hand, for I exist, finally between two poems rather than two people, three of us in a tree, multiplied by seven, a perfect fifth, its resonance, you are a swallow, the flower is not the flower, this is my name, & I am twice, & I will never die again, my life as always before belated love, this is grammar, the analogue is each, the outcropped cliff above the beach, three salmon in the breakers. * * * (Untitled Epic Poem on the History of Undustrialization by R. Buckminster Fuller, pp. 1-50) Grid by Dan Farrell with cover artwork by Phillip McCrum 24p $6 An excerpt: Hand-wheeled public vehicles artifical hand fashion anything invoked, the least of them defy the least of them unwittingly managed, the sole centrifuge of outranged socialism, vituperance run government. Could scarecrow stabilizer, running stabilizer, and gravity stabilizer get a human individual, or train in the use of it. Pleased indeed. Who began to support a vast radially spinning gravity scheme. Who indeed. Who appeared in lieu of the collective to spread out. Support world of wheeled integration, defy mixed grenades and anything national. He run. He fast. And direct them in the use of multiparty public vehicles. On the pot, there spinning quasi- Goebbels, on the pot, there running gravity the human balancer. Unlike, unlike, unlike. Super-single, and super world gyroscope are there demonstrated indeed there accustomed. * * * Meow Press publishes poetry chapbooks in limited editions for circulation among people who would like to read them. If you are interested in ordering, please contact Small Press Distribution: www.spdbooks.org Note: exchange and review copies are available from the publisher and trade-ins are always welcome. Send in old chapbooks for upgrades. Queries to: kuszai@hotmail.com or http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/presses/meow/ or even PO Box 948568 San Diego California U.S.A. 92037 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 12:59:20 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: Boston poetry community as part of racist Boston? Geez. In-Reply-To: <19990812213129.45927.qmail@hotmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I have to say I've always loved Boston, with all its grimy problems. But I think I know a different Boston. Cambridge, for one, the working-class part where my friends live (away from Harvard Square), is thoroughly integrated. A lot of other neighborhoods are de facto, and fairly viciously, segregated, but that's true, and inexcusable, almost everywhere in this country. In San Diego, where I now live, even the street traffic, such as it is, is segregated, except for a handful of small downtown neighborhoods, in one of which I live. Many of New York's (and San Francisco's) suburbs are equally so, especially where race and class work together, and so are a lot of NYC neighborhoods--not too many white faces in BedSty or Harlem, not too many non-Italians in Bensonhurst. And foot traffic doesn't necessarily equal domicile, even in the more enlightened neighborhoods. How does this translate to the lit world? I've been out of New York for about ten years, so maybe things have changed, but I can think of only a handful of non-anglo regular participants in the scenes that I knew best over the 30 years that I was involved--St. Mark's, the Upper West Side, the Ear--and no anglo participants in, for instance, the West Indian poetry scene that flourishes in Brooklyn. I'd love to be wrong about this. Here's a Newton story. In the early 70's I dated a woman who belonged to a Boston commune that suddenly found itself homeless. They lucked into a month-to-month rental in the Newton of grand estates--the owner was trying to figure out what to do with the property and figured he might as well pay the tax burden with a rental. As a result eight scruffy types, including one poet and two people of color, spent three years in a 40 room mansion. I don't know what the neighbors thought, or if they even knew--the place sat in the middle of 12 acres of field, forest and pond. But I guess they had integrated Newton. And they gave great parties. At 09:31 PM 8/12/99 GMT, you wrote: >RE: well, i gotta back karen up on this; being from boston (or rather >newton, the "golden ghetto" of the greater boston area) i can attest to the >sharp divisions in neighborhoods --more so than in SF or NYC. > >I am also from Newton (the "golden ghetto" )and got used to running into >people who thought I was rich. But you should know better, as do I: Newton >is comprised of many Newtons: Newton Center, Newtonville, West Newton, >Newton Highlands, Newton Upper Falls, Newton Lower Falls, THE LAKE (!!), >Chestnut Hill, etc, etc. --it is one of the most economically diverse >suburbs in Boston, if not THE most diverse. Yes, it is chock-full of lawyers >and psychiatrists (Newton Center has the highest number of psychiatrists per >sq mile in the country) and the "new" high-tech rich, but just a few miles >away in any direction are the working class and blue collar people. Artists >and writers also flourish there--it's close to the city and also has a >lively arts scene of its own. > >If by "sharp divisions" in neighborhoods, you mean racially unmixed >neighborhoods, well, when I was growing up there it was not >racially/ethnically mixed--but no suburb that far away from the city was. >Now it is though. If you don't believe me, take a trip down Washington >Street from West Newton to Newton Corner, or drive through some >neighborhoods next time you're there. > >>From: Maria Damon >>Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group >>To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >>Subject: Re: Boston poetry community as part of racist Boston? Geez. >>Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 17:34:18 -0600 >> >>At 4:15 PM -0400 8/11/99, David Kirschenbaum wrote: >> >>Karen Kelley wrote: >> > >> >>Being from Boston, this post caught my eye. I guess I'll say it flat >> >out: >> >>Boston is the most racist place I've ever lived. Granted, I >went from >> >>there to New York & on to San Francisco--so maybe Boston >just looks bad >>by >> >>comparison. It all seemed quite civilized on the >surface: the >> >>neighborhoods were segregated and everyone knew which >lines not to >>cross. >> >>Maybe it's changed since I left 15 years ago, >but I kind of doubt it. >> > >> >I'm not from Boston, and, hell, as a Yankees fan in 1978 even owned a >> >"Boston Sucks" T-shirt, until my mother found out about it and made my >> >sister take it back, but geez, no matter how racist Boston may be --and >>I've >> >heard horror stories from many former residents, and, back to baseball, >>the >> >Red Sox were even the last team to integrate, Pumpsie Green in 1959, if >> >memory serves me right, a full 12 years after Jackie Robinson and Larry >> >Doby--but from the poetic community I know their isn't even a subtle form >>of >> >racism. None. Zip. Nada. >> >The ideas of neighborhoods being segregated and knowing the uncrossable >> >lines relates to just about any major metropolis, including San Francisco >> >and New York, each of which I've lived in, the latter for most of my >>live. >> >Instead, again, I think it's simply ignorance rather than racism, that at >> >times leads to non-diverse events and publications, sometimes even my >>own. >> >It takes an extra effort to be inclusive, be it simply through inquiry or >> >attending more ethnically and racially diverse reading series. >> >Be Good, >> >David >> >>well, i gotta back karen up on this; being from boston (or rather newton, >>the "golden ghetto" of the greater boston area) i can attest to the sharp >>divisions in neighborhoods --more so than in SF or NYC. however, there are >>other forms of racism, such as in the Twin Cities where everything's >>supposed to be so nicey nice. the neighborhoods aren't as sharply divided, >>but people are almost wilfully naive and want to deny difference wherever >>they find it. > > >_______________________________________________________________ >Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com > > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 16:15:04 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: A H Bramhall Subject: Boston's Last Poet MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Pumpsie Green found the distances difficult to navigate, the hardscrabble pitiless. efforting the needful, he came up lacking. his brother Cornell gained distinction with the Dallas Cowboys, Pumpsie just got drunk with his extra tall teammate and boded something about flying to Israel: never got there. heroes are sometimes incomplete, as are most political moves. gestures are far more agreeable. the days grow shadowy at certain times, a matter of physical space, the dialectic of disadvantage. this is home for the clouded, this relentless physical insistence. that there be a place; that that place be filled; that intention grows ever more difficult in the demands of more space and less. Pumpsie never became a man, for he always was. always, no matter how carved from the ulteriour and sent down the river. the writers on the beat aren't now and never were anyway close to the core, nor have they access to the margins. they just know something happened, know by an inferiour logic. they never reach the end of the line because, why, that line bends indistinctively into a polite class war, the kind we save for our neighbours. the line bends to return, then bends again. how much engagement can one stand? Pumpsie was not our neighbour, perhaps, but was equally lost. community doesn't survive for nothing. deliverance is a sensible point of view, in the rare guarded age we've made. the song follows the social dictates as ever, forever, filling the stream with a little trail of blood, figurative blood, the only kind any of us believe in. the miners look up, suddenly discover Pumpsie, in the sharp cone of their sight. your edge is now mainframe, sir, they say, and gracefully embrace the formerly failing ballplayer. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 14 Aug 1999 04:48:19 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Jullich Subject: Re: Village Voice POLYVERSE review -Reply Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain >>> Douglas 08/13/99 08:05am >>> >Jeffrey: >Thank you for the good analysis of a very wrong-headed >review. I truly appreciate it. >Douglas Messerli, Sun & Moon Press. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thank ~you!~ . . . Sir. I wanted to add, but decorum precludes: The way he goes on and on about how the one "saving grace" of the book is all this supposed erotica he quotes ("'As I pinch my nipples,'" "Brown puts an erotic twist on this", "Beat erotics", ~"polymorphous~ relation to gender" [my emphasis], "That and sex", "orgy . . . is just getting warmed up"), Ziolkowski seems to be giving a single-mindedly ~horny~ reading of an apparently very ~literary~ book . . . as if it were all some sort of ~panty raid~ which Brown ("goofy in a troubadour-hippie-Fugs way", like straight from ~Dogpatch~) had lured him into. (Note the telltale ~"Fugs."~) I'd say, on that vein, --- and this is when he was in a ~good~ mood and having his jollies, --- that Z. got stuck in a (heterosexualized) he-reader/she-author wish fulfillment as to what the book might be, and read it entirely through the fact that the cover has the name of a female author on it. He seems to have misread the title as ~Per-verse,~ rather than ~Polyverse~ (as I think his entendre about "polymorphous" brings to the surface). Jeffrey Jullich ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 14:45:15 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: R M Daley Subject: oh my god: cut-ups / "homosexualization of the New York avant-garde" In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII 1. please see sedgwick's intro to Novel Gazing, puclished Duke Press 1997 for a primer on "queer theory" which departs ferociously from, says a thousand goodbyes to, freud and his cronies whose arrested sexual (theory) development foisted repression on any and everything not deemed 'natural' or 'biological' - this (queer theory) comes from a regard for identity as a lot of hooey, and the notion that pieces of art are extensions of social, sexual, personal identity is based completely in typecasting "cut-ups" as something not original, lyrical, personal, constitutive of the breeder's identity (nowadays put into sterile, scientized terms like genes, DNA, genetic blueprint, etc) - fine, cut-ups are bastards - the point is that queer theory would never regard art as the children of artists in the first place, let alone concede that gay men have mules - (art unable itself of reproducing) 2. queer theory has very little truck with terms like 'gay," "lesbian" "hetero" - that's the point of queer theory - throwing out the babies, the bathwater , that all this identity festers in - and leaving the paranoia to the new historicists - queer theory is mired in production , the point is that is does so regardless of its subscription to its own identity 3. not everyone has to have babies - some women don't have babies - some women who fuck with men don't have babies - some women who fuck with women don't have babies - some women who fuck men have babies and then give them away - some men who fuck men have babies - some men who fuck women have babies - some men who fuck women have babies and then kill them - some men want babies who like particularly to fuck men and women- some women who fuck women have babies burroughs had a kid - cage was married to xenia - rauschenberg loves dogs -andy loved edie - you see how one could go on and on ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 15:54:58 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: cut-ups / "homosexualization of the New York avant-garde" In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable earl jackson did a terrific talk on cut-up technique and gay sexuality at the Queer Beats conference in November of 1996. as i recall, he seemed to make the association through the experience of *dis*sociation gay guys of the 50s must have felt between experience and the possible expressions or means of representing it. At 12:53 AM -0400 8/14/99, Jeffrey Jullich wrote: >>>> Mark Prejsnar 08/10/99 07:13pm >>> wrote: > >>Jacques, > >>I would be interested to hear what you feel connects the >>"homosexualization of the New York avant-garde" with cut-up >technique...= =2E >>(beyond the fact that some gay guys did it....) > >--Mark Prejsnar >---------------------------------------------------------------------------= ---- >--------- >Mark, > >Although I don't know what Jacques' answer would be to that question, . . >. I would like to agree with him about "the dangers of historical >decontextualization", and that, to name as he did only Burroughs, Cage, >and Ashbery, "homosexualization" is significant for the invention of >cut-ups. Personally, I've already had a similar impression concerning the >"homosexualization" of Warhol's, Johns', and Rauschenberg's >appropriations, in relation to the genesis of Pop. (Not to forget: the >theoretics of cut-ups' historical period were also hothouse to "Notes on >Camp," whose own "homosexualization" treated sexuality and art style as >self-evident equivalents. ) Why I feel that way, though, may be thin ice >to explain. > >I take it from your (supportive) tone that you mean your question to be >~in defense~ of those "gay guys", . . . as though Jacques' telescoping of >the period into one "-ization" were presumption, like talking "Velvet >Mafia" or shortchanging heterosexualized contemporaries. But at the same >time I'd like to submit that your "beyond the fact that some gay guys did >it" may have a trivializing casualness about it, . . . as though there >were always "gay guys" around, as it seems nowadays, and no less than >three all at once independentally but coincidentally being instrumental in >the creation of a new art form were at best some statistical fluke. As >though the branding iron of idiosyncratic desire did not leave its stamp >on art. Back to "historical decontextualization": those three were still >of a generation which couldn't yet even be ~named~ as "gay", so their >consensus in all engineering this same new art form into being is to the >contrary rather remarkable. If a new genre were to emerge from a >similarly exclusionary group of, say, Jews, ---or ~lesbians~ rather than >"guys"! =D8 it might be more striking and appear instantly sensible for >someone to begin one of those typical explorations of Jewish Mysticist >antecedents, or such. > >That said, let me get myself into more hot water by attempting to explain >the parallel I find between the Warhol-Johns-Rauschenberg >"homosexualization" and Pop, and between the Burroughs-Cage-Ashbery >"homosexualization" and cut-ups. Proviso: I may be confusing psychology >for ontology, and I'm almost definitely erring into what Jacques warns >against as "analogical . . . significance." (However, given the >metaphoric nature of "historical contextualization's" hidden similes >themselves, some tropological thinking seems allowable.) > >Here=A2s the point: > >The xerox-like image transfer methods (silk screening) of the Pop artists >~reproduced~ images without devising new ones; similarly, that graphic >form has its literary equivalent in cut-ups, which also, if not per se >reproducing, re-~arrange~ a pre-existing text without introducing new >matter. > >The (perhaps heretically naive) link my mind draws is---to ~biological~ >reproduction, or procreation. (There is some slippage of terms here, as >we use the word "reproduction" for both productive biological parturition >and the ~non-productive~ "mechanical reproduction" we know since >Benjamin.) To blurt it out---the figure of the homosexual is, in >biological terms, non-productive (non-reproducing), and the >"homosexualization" artwork of those cut-up/Pop progenitors was also >non-productive ("reproduction"). If we suspend disbelief and try to >re-imagine from the perspective of those '50's art climate, "original" >creation would have been seen as an indispensable criterion of ~a man's~ >art. > >The necessary absurdity that I=A2m figuring into this logic is the cliche >that "an artwork is like a child to the artist"; and I am of course >assuming for the sake of this stereotyped argumentation the fallacy of the >~childless~ homosexual, a fallacy which, however, in the case of these >particular six artists named in the "homosexualization", happens to hold >true (perhaps not accidentally). > >Hence---I suppose another way of putting this (increasingly embarassing) >notion is that: the homosexual does not ~add~ to the world. (Although an >unpalatable axiom, and patently objectionable on the level of the real, it >seems fair to assert in the spirit of dogma such as "Ce sexe qui n'est pas >un" or other post-modern metaphysics.) In these terms, the "gay guys" >behind cut-ups and Pop reproduction, despite their incontestable >contribution, did not ~add~ to the world or the bulk of existing >imagery/text in the same way that a work of "original" production takes up >space. (~Europe~ had "really" not added anything to ~Beryl of the >Biplane;~ it's commutative, not additive.) > >As far as cut-ups' earlier larval stage of ~collage,~ I believe Wayne >Koestenbaum has commented on the sublimated male-male "bonding" that >Picasso and Braque acted out in its invention and manufacture >(Koestenbaum, ~Double Talk: The Erotics of Male Literary Collaboration,~ >which should perhaps be required reading in relation to "beyond the fact": >same-sex literary collaboration may ~already~ be an a priori >"homosexualization," regardless of the participants' actual sexual >preference, according to Koestenbaum's thesis). > > >I hope this doesn't seem like Pound on Social Credit. I mean it as Queer >Theory,---which is always speculative. > >Jeffrey Jullich ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 15:58:32 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Accessibility, Inclusivity, The Seen Scene In-Reply-To: <000701bee508$dda48b80$24511d18@nycap.rr.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" rest assured, pierre. lots of folks i think are reading Jonas --i don't know if they're in boston: aldon nielsen, brent edwards, myself, and others are either writing about him or teaching his work. At 5:23 PM -0400 8/12/99, Pierre Joris wrote: >Much enjoyed your posts re Boston poetry scene, Tisa. > >But seem to have missed mention by anyone on this thread (correct me if I'm >wrong) of my favorite of the long departed Boston poetas: Stephen Jonas, >killed by smack, or Boston, in the mid-sixties. Is he still being read? Or >forgotten despite Joe Torra's work? I'm pretty sure Torra's selected Jonas >from Talisman is still in print.-- Pierre > > -----Original Message----- >From: UB Poetics discussion group >[mailto:POETICS@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu] On Behalf Of Tisa Bryant >Sent: Thursday, August 12, 1999 12:03 AM >To: POETICS@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu >Subject: Accessibility, Inclusivity, The Seen Scene > > The "guard/garde" in van- and avant- tend to do just that. It's hard to >think of the words as having anything to do with "open"; they seem to work >against insistence. Vanguard, at the front, standing along the curve, >bordering on, bordering from, in relation to the center of concentric >understanding, and bound by it until movement occurs, then starting over. >The ins and outs. >As I said in my post, I was one of the few, meaning three or four out of a >possible 15, experimenting writers within the DRC, so said content in the >Reading Series far outweighed that of the workshops/work produced. While a >reunion of the DRC might be intriguing to some, its occurence at the next >Alt Bo Po conference would yield yet another thread like the one currently >being knotted here. >I did not mean to imply that Boston's poetry scene, or its poets, were >racist simply by living in a place with Boston's reputation. The DRC & RS >came about out of lack, and to "break down the elitist aura surrounding >(Black) literary figures." Bring 'em "home", make 'em accessible. So >non-academic folks and academics could hear some poetry and meet the poets >without feeling unwelcome, undereducated, or too poor. Much like, in >varying respects, the Poetry Project, or the Unterberg/Y series, or Small >Press Traffic, or what Aaron Kiely put together, or any other such thing >going on in this world. Kiely created an event that made sense to him (and >who knows who declined for whatever reason to attend?), invited people he >knew, and will continue to expand and evolve as organizes future >conferences, as David Kirschenbaum said. >What is intriguing to me, although it's great that he's open to suggestions, >is how he (or anyone) feels/thinks out the "alternative" in Boston (or >anywhere) and what kinds of writers/work will be encouraged by the >conferences, who will come and branch out, from the universities and from >the 'hoods. Here alliances between Kiely, Lansing and Corbett could yield >much, but I think Kiely's vision, and support of it, to be more important. >I echo Linda Russo here, and what I think Kevin Killian was getting at. > >There's got to be something to get to. Where is that? Home can work just >as well as anywhere, if one is comfortable there, of one's own making or >ad/a/o/ption. >Here I must point out that the quality of poetic life in Boston may simply >not sustain many for very long. (why people leave places) It can't be the >weather, which is just as bad if not worse in Buffalo. So, Jacques, back to >curriculum/influence, or something. Point(s) well taken. I wish Alt Bo Po >the best, count Aaron as a burgeoning force to be reckoned with, and hope to >see for myself some day what happens there. >The ethnicity & innovation issue (together and separately) is about >inclusivity, but not ethnicity as alternative in and of itself. Here, the >DRC references do not serve well. >Certainly there have been some changes since The New American Poetry, or >Gross & Quasha's Open Poetry, in which Black poets appeared together in the >back of the book, instead of within the categorical sections in which they >best fit, a move that at once showcased an impressive group of Black >experimentalists and relegated them to an unfortunate and historically >loaded space. But certain blindnesses still persist. Also too are the >refusals by mainstream of-color editors to include same experimentalists in >the publications they produce(d). This cannot be ignored. >Also again, one must be seen to be part of the scene, be seen as part of the >scene and seen well once seen there, understood to fit. (Back to Dodie >Bellamy's persona post). It's easy to say that there are "no" or "few" >(blank) writers, but then, how does one know, in publishing, especially if >said writer doesn't dally with the usual signifiers in a recognizable way, >if at all, goes by a first initial and non-identifiably ethnically specific >last name, and/or if one doesn't show up on the scene? What is happening >outside of the seen, and outside of the scene, and what does that look/sound >like? How does physical presence come to be privileged over the arrival of >text in this regard? This said specifically regarding inclusion/exclusion >and writers of color, but also as a general query on the function of >"centers", in this context. > > > >************************************************************ >Today we declare: >First, they are living in a Nono form; >Second, they are Nono lives; >Third, they make us feel Nono; >Fourth, they make us become Nono; >Fifth, we Nono. >Lan Ma >"Manifesto of Nonoism" >(Chendu, China, May 4, 1986) >*************************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 10:36:22 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: 2 New Chapbooks from Meow Press / Kuszai MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This came to the administrative account. Chris -- From: "Joel Kuszai" Date: 8/13/99, 9:47 PM +0000 2 New Chapbooks from Meow Press Versiones Vertiges by Stephen Cope 20p $6 Salmon in the Breakers October 1989, how pure and big a wound, the branches in their homelessness, the sea is still the sea, but we are dust or will be, the president is dead, the unequivocal seagulls, Scardenelli, you're not mad, the turning of the earth against the sun, once upon a time, a Cherokee, a whiskey sour, bluebird dead by now as its always been a bluebird, this is love, in a photo, waning like an affect, in a dream, the cigarettes, it takes three to make a story, at Pleasure Point the surfers, & I will never die, out of season, 4 X 4, over & over again, but no-one wants a raga, 90210, the wave paced at its interval, take my hand, for I exist, finally between two poems rather than two people, three of us in a tree, multiplied by seven, a perfect fifth, its resonance, you are a swallow, the flower is not the flower, this is my name, & I am twice, & I will never die again, my life as always before belated love, this is grammar, the analogue is each, the outcropped cliff above the beach, three salmon in the breakers. from VERSIONES VERTIGES * * * (Untitled Epic Poem on the History of Undustrialization by R. Buckminster Fuller, pp. 1-50) Grid by Dan Farrell with cover artwork by Phillip McCrum 24p $6 An excerpt: Hand-wheeled public vehicles artifical hand fashion anything invoked, the least of them defy the least of them unwittingly managed, the sole centrifuge of outranged socialism, vituperance run government. Could scarecrow stabilizer, running stabilizer, and gravity stabilizer get a human individual, or train in the use of it. Pleased indeed. Who began to support a vast radially spinning gravity scheme. Who indeed. Who appeared in lieu of the collective to spread out. Support world of wheeled integration, defy mixed grenades and anything national. He run. He fast. And direct them in the use of multiparty public vehicles. On the pot, there spinning quasi- Goebbels, on the pot, there running gravity the human balancer. Unlike, unlike, unlike. Super-single, and super world gyroscope are there demonstrated indeed there accustomed. * * * Meow Press publishes poetry chapbooks in limited editions for circulation among people would like to read them. If you are interested in ordering, please contact Small Press Distribution: www.spdbooks.org Note: exchange and review copies are available from the publisher and trade-ins are always welcome. Send in old chapbooks for upgrades. Queries to: kuszai@hotmail.com or http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/presses/meow/ or even PO Box 948568 San Diego California U.S.A. 92037 _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 10:39:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: job listing / Kevin Magee MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Had to reformat this message. Chris -- From: TaniaBunke@aol.com Date: 8/14/99, 8:38 AM -0400 Supplement to MLK Job List -- August 14, 1999 The following job is extremely time sensitive: Academy of Court Reporting, Cleveland, Ohio. http://www.netset.com/~academy/ Come celebrate the poetics of working class politics at the millenium in the town that's famous as the birthplace of Albert Ayler and the early factory poems of Hart Crane--and, of course, the Program in Adult Education at the Academy of Court Reporting, which is pleased to announce and invite applications for an English Teacher to teach grammar, composition, vocabulary, tech-dental terminology, legal terminology, law office management, transcript English, business writing, critical thinking, geography and general job counseling in a privately owned paralegal and court reporting program beginning at the end of September, 1999. ACR, a growing multi-campus business college located in the same downtown Cleveland Rockefeller Building where John D. built his Oil Empire and where Abraham Lincoln once spent the night, sits a few blocks from the same streets (reminiscent of the Old South) that will host a police-escorted white supremacy rally on August 21, 1-3 p.m. August 13 Plain Dealer: "Journalists who enter the areas designated for protestors and sympathizers will not be allowed to bring any writing utensils, notepads, tape recorders of cameras, [Mayor] White said." A poet of arguable reputation with insignificant small press book publication and non-documented teaching assistantships is being sought for this part-time position. Typically the teaching load for the English Teacher is five to seven classes per quarter. The academic year consists of four quarters, with one week off in between (without pay). Salary is commensurate with the non-union service sector industry. The English Teacher receives $11.25 per hour for each hour spent in the class room. On the basis of an average courseload of six classes at four hours instruction per week, the English Teacher may expect to receive an typical weekly salary of $250-$300 (without benefits). The English Teacher may expect to be responsible for 60 to 100 students per quarter. ACR-Cleveland currently enrolls about 300 undergraduates in paralegal and court reporting studies. There is an open admissions policy, and the English program has no support from anyone, anywhere. The faculty in the English Program was for a short while comprised of two poets (Richard Wagle and Kevin Magee). "Mr. Wagle" left in at the end of March. His replacement, a retired high school teacher, recently told a student to her face and in front of her classmates that "ask" pronounced "axe" is ignorant. Many students were justifiably hurt, and upset. "Mr. Magee" is leaving in mid-September. ACR-Cleveland is home to a campus literary magazine which keeps changing its name, sample sound-bites from which include Lori El-Amin's "his sexy hard hazel eyes and his loving thug passion" (written to a boyfriend killed in a bar brawl in response to the routine composition topic, 'What's the worst thing that happened to you this week') and the self-declared 'Wild Irish Rose,' Missy Dowling's "Even this some day will pass/But not before you kick some ass" (written to a boyfriend in prison). About 95% of ACR students, most of whom come from east of East 1999, are single mothers balancing children, minimum wage part-time jobs, and a strict attendance policy. Review of applications continues until the first person responds. Send cover letter and resume (no letters of recommendation are required) to: Education Director, Academy of Court Reporting/Cleveland Campus, Cleveland, Ohio. Invisible faculty wives and Minority candidates strongly encouraged to apply. Anna Julia Cooper i.e., What a Falling Off There Was: Who remembers that Oberlin College was one of the half dozen colleges for Black Women mentioned by Ms. Cooper in her radical reconstruction "Zhenotdel" writings before the White Terror unleashed Jim Crow and moved masses of laborers into the northern mills? Barbara Evans Clements: "Viewed from another angle, it was also one of the most utopian, most egalitarian, most hopeful ventures of the 1920s. The Zhenotdel was hundreds of young women, some still teenagers, walking barefoot from village to village in the summers, carrying copies of "Krestianka" to read aloud to peasants in the evenings. It was factory workers proudly opening the day care centers they had scrounged and saved for. It was communes and cooperatives, lunchrooms and laundries, all organized and run by women. That is, the Zhenotdel . . . was also, like so much else in the 1920s, a project animated by a magical sense of the limitless possibilities of a revolutionary new world." ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 14 Aug 1999 16:51:21 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: Gimme Back Ma Grommets! In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII HAT NUMBER TWO available now Feel like a page torn out? Find yourself eating the wrong thing? Want to make your brain the pope's limo? Try HAT NUMBER TWO! featuring stunning and comprehensible and incomprehensible work by The brothers BERRIGAN Tenant activist and incunabula afficionado DAN BOUCHARD Appalachian polyversist LEE ANN BROWN Alternaquasar angeleno FRANKLIN BRUNO FRAN CARLEN Vincent Price as "STEVE CARLL" MICHAEL FRIEDMAN DREW GARDNER MERRILL GILFILLAN Grommetkeeper MICHAEL GIZZI ROBERT HALE, ex-Versus Troubled surfer LISA JARNOT W. B. KECKLER Heraclitean fragment JOHN LATTA Cartesian prune LISA LUBASCH BILL LUOMA, greengrocer GILLIAN MCCAIN STEVE MALMUDE EILEEN MYLES MAGGIE NELSON (w/ Ravi Shankar) JENI OLIN (w/ Tom Brokaw) Infidel RON PADGETT JULIE EZELLE PATTON LAURIE PRICE Feed columnist ALISSA QUART ELENI SIKELIANOS Smurf-trader ERIK SWEET Goulash fantasist CAROL SZAMATOWICZ CHRIS VITIELLO GEOFFREY "GEOFFREY YOUNG" YOUNG and MAGGIE Z US$7 single issue / US$12 two-issue subscription / US$1000 lifetime sub make checks payable to Jordan Davis and send to: THE HAT c/o EDGAR 331 E 9TH ST APT 1 NY NY 10003 or send an email with your address to: jdavis@panix.com available soon at SPD ahoy! ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 14 Aug 1999 17:15:16 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Terry Diggory Subject: Re: Jacataqua In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The authority I would trust on this question is Bryce Conrad, who claims that Jacataqua is Williams's invention. See Conrad, "Engendering History: The Sexual Structure of William Carlos Williams' IN THE AMERICAN GRAIN," TWENTIETH-CENTURY LITERATURE 35.3 (Fall 1989): 254-78. See p. 266 for the claim of invention and note 8 on pp. 275-76 for a discussion of possible sources. There may be more info in Conrad's book on IAG, which I don't have at my fingertips: Refiguring America : a study of William Carlos Williams' In the American grain (U of Illinois P, 1990). Terry Diggory At 07:59 PM 8/10/99 -0400, you wrote: >I'm looking for information about "Jacataqua" -- essay by William Carlos >Williams in __In the American Grain__. The piece touches on Aaron Burr's >interaction during the Revolutionary War with the Abenaki Indians. WCW >describes the woman Jacataqua as an Abenaki "sachem" or chief, but I can >find no other historical reference to her -- anybody know if she existed? >Thanks. >Allison Cobb > > >Get your FREE Email at http://mailcity.lycos.com >Get your PERSONALIZED START PAGE at http://my.lycos.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 14 Aug 1999 23:04:10 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: L Th e MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII ==|=| L Years ago I taught a textbook, Art After Modernism, and man, I remember being so excited by it so that I couldn't see straight! I wanted to be in it as well! Now, I found the book, worn and second-hand at a bookstore, looking old, but the texts are as fresh and useful as ever. Immediately I started reflecting on the aging I'm going through on the way to death, how I have memories which are _these_ memories and no others, memories of _this_ unfolding world and no other. I would love my mind to play tricks on me. But there is something to be said always about the inertness of the real, in relation to possible worlds theory - that almost everything appears after the fact to be a natural kind, implicit in the makeup of memory and thinking, and the rest, all those untaken paths, paths known and unknown, are elsewise to such an extent that they do not affect the body, the way the _one_ path does, the _one path_ we are setting down our whole life. It is only later and latest that the path appears _as such,_ and there is a great sadness with its appearance; it's delicate, ephemer- al, in the midst of others which were lost. Yet it contains those natural kinds which are the natural kinds of memory, those tagged, interrelated, and taken for granted. Because of this, because of the inertness, it's clear that the natural kinds of, say, Kripke or those possible worlds, are processes of community formation, that they intend communalities and com- monalities of history. But I am aging and what do I know. The same of course is true of philosophy; _these_ are the authors I have read, and no other, I might have taken those other courses, might have become an entirely different person, what if Wittgenstein's Tractatus wasn't available in Israel, on the shelf before me, in 1962? I read it naively; I had no idea what I was doing, but the resonance was there, and as a child I did pick up such a book and hold it close to me. Were I such a child. Were I such, but not; I become untouchable, repelled by my own history, all too fragile, gasping for air, caressing and cultivating the Thing which remains just adjacent to unequivocal death. The path is mine alone; the walls, floor, and ceiling are mine. There are no doors; later, one knows as well that the windows are absent. Th e The path i s mine a lone; the wa lls, floor, and ce iling are mi ne. There are no doors; later, one kn ows as wel l that t he window s are ab sent. __________________________________________________________________________ The pa th i s mi ne a l one ; the wa ll s, flo or, an d c e i lin g a re mi ne. The re are no do ors ; lat er, on e k n o ws as wel l tha t t he wi ndo w s ar e a b sen t. ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ The path i s min e a lone ; t he w a ll s, f loor , an d ce ili ng a re m i ne . Ther e ar e no doo rs; lat er, one kn o ws a s we l l that t h e wi ndow s a re a b sent . ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ The pa th i s mi ne a l o ne ; the w a ll s, flo or , an d c e i li n g a re mi ne . The re ar e no do ors ; l at er, on e k n o ws as we l l tha t t h e wi ndo w s a r e a b sen t. ___ ___ __ _ _ __ ___ ___ __ _ _ __ ___ ___ __ _ _ __ ___ ___ __ _ _ __ Th e pa th i s m in e a lo ne ; t he w a ll s, f lo or , an d ce i li ng a re m i ne . Th er e ar e no d oo rs ; l at er , on e kn o ws a s we l l th at t h e wi nd ow s a re a b se nt . __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Th e pa th i s m i n e a l o ne ; t he w a ll s, f lo or , an d c e i li n g a re m i ne . Th e r e ar e no d o o rs ; l at er , on e k n o ws a s we l l th a t t h e wi nd o w s a r e a b se n t . __ _ _ __ __ _ _ __ __ _ _ __ __ _ _ __ __ _ _ __ __ _ _ __ __ _ _ __ __ _ = ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 14 Aug 1999 23:27:13 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Julie Johnson Subject: New Small Press Publications MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Duration Press is pleased to announce its ongoing Small Press announcements list. This list will be updated every two weeks (the next appearing August 28th), with previous lists archived at the Duration site ( http://members.xoom.com/Duration/durationhome.html ). For publishers wishing to have their publications listed, please e-mail Jerrold Shiroma at three7@earthlink.net ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1999 14:12:34 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: Incorrect or incomplete address field found and ignored. From: derek beaulieu Subject: new from housepress: basinski's "by" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit housepress is pleased to announce the release of our latest chapbook: "by" by Michael Basinski a section of "by' was performed at the 2nd Annual Boston Experimental Poetry Conference, and housepress is very excited to be releasing the entire text of "by" in a limited edition handcrafted chapbook. 'by' is a 10 page poem of "fused/new words or words with visual mater are words of night... these are places between the various voices of/or places of the poem" -- "a state of non-being - -the non-being of finality -- as if the imagination halts" (from the author's afterword) published in an edition of 40 numbered copies. each copy also features linocut from and back cover illustrations by derek beaulieu printed on artstock and bound Japanese style. "by" is available for $6.00 (including postage) for more information, contact housepress at: derek beaulieu 1339 19th ave nw calgary alberta canada t2m 1a5 housepre@telusplanet.net ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 17:16:19 -0400 Reply-To: Tom Orange Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Orange Subject: Village Voice POLYVERSE review MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII jeffrey jullich writes: "Wednesday's Village Voice runs a lukewarm or even unfavorable review of Lee Ann Brown's ~Polyverse,~ filled with gratuitous innuendo about Language Poetry...." "lukewarm" made be accurate; "unfavorable" and "harsh polemic" are, i think, stretching it. frankly i prefer ziolkowski's review to the sort of collective gush that has constituted the responses to this book that i've seen up to now. (and aside from haas -- that he would give the book notice in the /post/ in the first place is significant.) what ziolkowski refers to as the book's "terminally reverent tendency" to engage prior poetic models applies equally well, i think, to a tendency on the part of any poetic readership to take a book so highly anticipated and long awaited unquestioningly into its embrace. certainly the review is cheeky, provocative, irreverant even. but this is why i appreciate it. ziolkowski's tone, that of a more mature poet reading a less mature one, is odd, given that, if my information is correct, there is only three years' age difference between him and brown. and i don't agree with his notion that for a patchwork of styles to be successful it should be "synthesized into something exciting and strange." but i don't necessarily see "gratuitous innuendos" or even open aspersions being cast here, at brown, bernstein, or language poetry. i mean, "more heart than head, goofy in a troubadour-hippie-fugs way" may strike as more backhanded than compliment, but i would think "goofy" done right is as admirable and necessary as "the serious." would charles take offense at the charge of being an imprimatur-wielder? of course it's his position in the field that entitles him to pick the winner of the (yes, prestigous no scare quotes) NAP series in a given year, but i don't think he'd want to don the cloak of infallibility thereupon. and what poetics, reduced to a set of devices, does not risk becoming a "lifeless automatic pilot"? for ziolkowski, the erotic element in brown's work helps her avoid this, tho not enough to overcome what he sees as the work's limitations. not a bad assessment for a first book... (which i haven't read tho am more tempted to now) tom orange / wdc ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1999 23:10:07 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Ro MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII --\ Ro When in despair with fortune, Azure all alone, I caught this morning, morning's minion, close to bone, Where life is short, the art difficult and long, Though the harbor, barred, is moaning a dark song: These are the days which try men's souls, and women's, Going never gentle into that good night, have summoned The swollen bell - spilled all, told, but none for thee, Whose hollowed body moans, not banging, whimpering. How do I love you, I forgot those young and youthful ways Good neighbors fenced - and all through such bleak days I had a lean and hungry look - such men are dangerous For babes in London, worlds in wildflowers; now Celia Shits, she's lovely as a tree, I swallow, comfort thee, What comfort is in me? The times are changing, to be The apologia: Marion among the lilies, weeping, Spread herself upon the hill, the sky came seeping. ___________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 11:34:26 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Wallace Subject: review of Lee Ann Brown's Polyverse MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII For those who want an antidote to the recent Thad Ziolkowski botched review of Lee Ann Brown's POLYVERSE, I hope you'll read my review of the same book that's forthcoming in the October issue of Poetry Project Newsletter. I wish it was available now, but it will be shortly. Along with Jeffrey Jullich, I agree that Thad's sense that Lee Ann "fails to synthesize" the various traditions that she's working with misses the mark rather badly, that in fact the idea of "synthesis" is in many ways precisely what the book is NOT about. Lee Ann's goal seems to me neither to repeat certain poetic traditions, nor to synthesize their differences, but to destabilize these various traditions, both from within their conditions by rewriting their implications, and by putting them beside each other in a way that calls the notion of maintaining singular poetic traditions into question. It's not about synthesizing, but about "being next to," not about a new singularity but allowing disruptive multiple approaches to come into dialogue with each other in a way that's purposely frustrating and liberating. Mark Wallace /----------------------------------------------------------------------------\ | | | mdw@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu | | GWU: | | http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~mdw | | EPC: | | http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/wallace | |____________________________________________________________________________| ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1999 22:26:17 -0700 Reply-To: djray@gci-net.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David or Judy Ray Subject: Re: Readings Comments: To: suantrai@iol.ie, Brit'n'Irish , poetryetc@listbot.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear Friends, I am trying to arrange some readings for the coming academic year, and would appreciate any help in doing so. Some of you teach at places where I have visited in the past, and it would be a pleasure to return, and I am also available for workshops, etc. My new book is DEMONS IN THE DINER, Ashland Poetry Press, Ashland, Ohio, 44805. Mailing address is 2033 E. 10 St., Tucson, Az., 85719, phone/fax (520)-622-6332. Regards, David Ray djray@gci-net.com http://www.gci-net.com/~users/d/djray/ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 09:44:02 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keith Tuma Subject: The Gig 3 (fwd) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Apologies in advance for cross-posting.... Contributors should see copies >in about a week's time: > >* * * > > T H E G I G # 3 > >is now out, rounding off the first year. (Not bad, I tell myself: that's >an issue more than _Blast_ reached, for instance.) Inside is poetry by >Bill Griffiths, Susan Clark, Peter Hughes, Marjorie Welish, cris cheek, >Bruce Andrews, Thomas A Clark, Randolph Healy, & Catriona Strang; an >extract from Nathaniel Mackey's forthcoming novel _Atet A.D._; and an essay >on JH Prynne's "On the Matter of Thermal Packing" by Vance Maverick; plus >reviews by Pete Smith & myself. > >Issue 4/5 (November '99-March '00) will be a double-issue devoted to >criticism on the work of the British poet Peter Riley. It will have essays >by Andrew Crozier, Peter Middleton, James Keery, Peter Larkin, Tony Baker, >Mark Morrisson, John Hall & many others; a new interview, conducted by >Keith Tuma; new work of Peter Riley's; new translations by Lorand Gaspar; >and a select bibliography of his poetry and prose. (I'll be making a >separate posting about this soon, inviting advance subscriptions & >donations: both are crucial to this project's success!) > >* * * > >Subscriptions: > $6 (Canadian) for a single issue > $15 Cdn for a subscription (3 issues) >[Note: subscriptions beginning with #2 cost $21, reflecting the >double-issue #4/5] > $10 Cdn / issue for institutional copies. >[Note: #4/5 will be $20 for institutional copies] > >Prices include post within Canada; for the U.S., add $0.50 Cdn per issue; >for the U.K., add $1.00 per issue. Cheques and money orders should be made >out to "Nate Dorward". Please inquire as to foreign currency exchange if >not paying in Canadian dollars. > >Write to: Nate Dorward, 109 Hounslow Ave., Willowdale, ON, M2N 2B1, Canada >(email: ndorward@sprint.ca). > >_The Gig_ is also available from Peter Riley, at 27 Sturton St., Cambridge, >CB1 2QG (fax: 01223 576422; email: priley@dircon.co.uk). > >* * * > >_The Gig_ is devoted to new work from the US, Canada, UK & Ireland, with an >especial slant towards the last two. No unsolicited submissions, please. >Back-issues of issues #1 and #2 are still available: > > #1: Deanna Ferguson, Alan Halsey, Lisa Jarnot, Trevor Joyce, Peter > Riley, Maurice Scully, Pete Smith, John Wilkinson; Wilkinson on John > Wieners and schizophrenia. > > #2: Clark Coolidge, Allen Fisher, RF Langley, Tony Lopez, Peter > Manson, Drew Milne, Erin Moure, Gavin Selerie, Robert Sheppard, Lissa > Wolsak; Robin Purves on JH Prynne's _Not-You_ and its critical > reception. > >* * * > >Available soon from The Gig: Allen Fisher's _The Topological Shovel_, a set >of four essays written at the time that Fisher was commencing _Gravity as a >consequence of shape_, his influential poetry project of the 1980s and >'90s. > >* * * > >...and that's it: ad break's over. > >Nate Dorward >ndorward@sprint.ca >109 Hounslow Ave., Willowdale, ON, M2N 2B1, Canada >ph: (416) 221 6865 > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 09:40:36 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dodie Bellamy Subject: book search-help! Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Hi, does anyone have an extra copy or know where I can get one of Janet Altman's Epistolarity: Approaches to a Form. It appears to be one of those in-between print and out-of-print books, so it's not available anywhere at the moment. Thanks. Dodie ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 09:26:26 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: review of Lee Ann Brown's Polyverse In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I've always found Lee Ann's poetry charming, and I look forward to reading her book, but I think this handwringing over a wrongheaded review is a little strange, and more a testimony to how much a lot of us like Lee Ann than anything else. Surely I'm not the only list member who's been reviewed by clueless reviewers--sometimes they even praise facets of the work that are their own invention, which, frankly, doesn't feel a lot better than negative comment. Isn't this the risk we take when we go public? Isn't this especially true if we write in innovative ways? It is a shame that the review appeared in such a public venue. Complaining about it here is preaching to the choir: a letter to the editor might be more useful. At 11:34 AM 8/16/99 -0400, you wrote: > For those who want an antidote to the recent Thad Ziolkowski >botched review of Lee Ann Brown's POLYVERSE, I hope you'll read my review >of the same book that's forthcoming in the October issue of Poetry Project >Newsletter. I wish it was available now, but it will be shortly. > > Along with Jeffrey Jullich, I agree that Thad's sense that Lee Ann >"fails to synthesize" the various traditions that she's working with >misses the mark rather badly, that in fact the idea of "synthesis" is in >many ways precisely what the book is NOT about. Lee Ann's goal seems to me >neither to repeat certain poetic traditions, nor to synthesize their >differences, but to destabilize these various traditions, both from within >their conditions by rewriting their implications, and by putting them >beside each other in a way that calls the notion of maintaining singular >poetic traditions into question. It's not about synthesizing, but about >"being next to," not about a new singularity but allowing >disruptive multiple approaches to come into dialogue with each other in a >way that's purposely frustrating and liberating. > > Mark Wallace > > >/-------------------------------------------------------------------------- --\ >| | >| mdw@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu | >| GWU: | >| http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~mdw | >| EPC: | >| http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/wallace | >|__________________________________________________________________________ __| > > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 11:06:48 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Buuck Subject: Artists in Conversation/Kelsey St Event Comments: To: rebeca@loops.com, h2so4@socrates.berkeley.edu, sfarmer@earthlink.net, ezekiel@cats.ucsc.edu, AShurin@sfsu.edu, rgladman@php.ucsf.edu, leonachristie@hotmail.com, rob@getlostbooks.com, chrisko@sirius.com, normacole@aol.com, pamlu@sirius.com, sratclif@mills.edu, dshorter@cats.ucsc.edu, bkirshner@hds.harvard.edu, yedd@aol.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit For those of you in the Bay Area, here's an event I'll be moderating this Thursday night at 7. Artists in Collaboration/Collaborative Art: An Evening with Kiki Smith, Richard Tuttle, and Mei-mei Berssenbrugge Yerba Buena Center for the Arts In celebration of the 25th anniversary of Kelsey St. Press, and in conjunction with the Trinh T. Minh-ha & Lynn Marie Kirby collaboration "Nothing But Ways" at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Art in Conversation hosts artists Kiki Smith and Richard Tuttle, along with poet Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, to discuss collaborations between writers and visual artists. curated by Natasha Boas moderated by David Buuck special thanks to Rena Rosenwasser and Kelsey St. Press 7 pm : $3/$5 hosted in the Screening Room Yerba Buena Center for the Arts 701 Mission St @ 3rd SF 415-978-ARTS www.YerbaBuenaArts.org ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 23:16:55 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: Re: Ethnicity and the BoPoFest Comments: cc: k_kelley@MINDSPRING.COM Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Boston, indeed, was high tension racist when i lived there, a solitary black risked linching attempting to get a drink in a southey bar and none but the foolhardiest irishman found themselves on the streets of dorchester after dark. But I found L.A. pretty racist especially the police tho the mayor, the former chief of police was black, the cops black and white, never missed an opportunity to put a black male up against the car if he was walking with a white woman, even when they walked with their child, it was sick making. The only thing out of the ordinary about Rodney King was they didn't arrest him for assaulting sixteen officers. Thousands of Bufords out there in the valley looking for a scapegoat for their misery they'd rather share their suffering than your possibility. American shoots bursting from and reproducing in the bedrock of hatred, the cornerstone, the engine of the American colonial success. racism isn't unknown in Canada, but it seems more opportunistic less psychotic if they might eat some of the fish youwant to sell you'll hate them for keeping you from being as rich as you deserve. forbidden plateau fallen body dojo 4 song st. nowhere, b.c. V0R1Z0 canadaddy zonko@mindless.com zonko ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 07:14:45 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: juliana spahr Subject: chain 6 now available MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit now available CHAIN 6: letters Will Alexander • alphabets • archival finds • Kathy Dee Kaleokealoha Kaloloahilani Banggo • Régis Bonvacino • William Burroughs • Norma Cole • correspondences • Franck David and Marie Nimier • Johanna Drucker • essays on the letter e and Emily Dickinson’s letters • Mara Gálvez-Bretón • Susan Gevirtz and Myung Mi Kim • glyphs • Lyn Hejinian and Joan Retallack • Adeena Karasick • Bill Luoma • letters from the front • love letters • Nathaniel Mackey • Bernadette Mayer • Nick Piombino • Meredith Quartermain • Peter Quartermain • Albert Saijo • Andrew Schelling and Anne Waldman • Ron Silliman • Ardegno Soffici (with translation by Guy Bennett) • typographic poems • valentines • Keith Waldrop • Marta L. Werner • and more Includes call for work and submission guidelines for issue no. 7 on memoir/anti-memoir. 290 pages, $12 check out our website for complete table of contents: http://www2.hawaii.edu/~spahr/chain YET ANOTHER SAD STORY TO URGE YOU TO PLEASE SUBSCRIBE: Chain remains pathetically underfunded. The only institutional support we get is in mailing costs (last year when one of us went to the dean requesting some minor monetary support for Chain, she was told that the department doesn’t need to have any journals in this era of budget cuts). To break even on printing costs, all we need is around 350 subscribers. While we easily get 350 submissions for an issue, we have trouble keeping a subscription base of half that going. We know our situation is not unique. We urge those of you that value, submit to, and/or publish in independent journals to support them by subscribing. If you would like to make a donation, `A `A Arts is a not for profit 501(c)3 and your donation would be tax deductible to the full extent of the law. Remember us at the end of the year when you want to make a charitable donation to keep your taxes down. Please make check out to `A `A Arts. Send to: Juliana Spahr / Department of English / University of Hawai`i, Manoa / 1733 Donaghho Road / Honolulu, Hawai`i 96822. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 18:44:04 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lynn Miller Subject: Speculative philosophy=Secular theology MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable E Q U A L S I G N S =20 [KM]: Dear footstep, dear echo, there is a forward movement still, eac= h=20 word a precedent for another's name. I shift into another's past. "I sentenc= e=20 you." What did it mean to fall flat? The French Workers often raised their=20 voices on the Blvd. de Minima and along the tiny alleys of the Ile St. Louis= .=20 Hands raised at the end of questions, as though all were in question. [LM]: I question that. Pressure of the assumed name at your instep. It=20 made you want to look out the window, like voices rising at the end of each=20 assertion. Yours was a particular passion I did not often encounter in the=20 poetry of the late 20th century. That urgency we call Romantic. A vast field=20 of scarlet poppies in the south of France. [KM]: But you yourself have not escaped the express provocation, nor=20 spared yourself what Goethe believed the study of languages should evoke:=20 strong emotions. Forms of fanatacism and genius among the tyranny of everyda= y=20 life conceived in a binge. A powerful social movement is expected for which=20 contemporary philosophy cannot provide a method. [LM]: But he who loves verbal arabesques above all fails to consider=20 himself either rational or real. Death only returns to is proportion and=20 horizon, a biological horizon, when the meaning of life becomes the=20 experience of life in the collective, our own individual instance experience= d=20 as a contribution to the future, to generation in its strongest=20 (feminine/reproductive) sense. [KM]: That sounds a lot like Leopardi, the only real woman among the=20 man-romantics. Shurin's happiness--the hope of health--as read against=20 Philosophy's refusal to acknowledge the priority biology has in the demand=20 for happiness, in the full, firm sense the word had in the eighteenth=20 century. The crisis of disease situated in Nature. "My mind diseased,=20 disease my luckless framework." This experience puts him in a woman's skin,=20 who arrives before her now without the language of amorous discourse.=20 [LM]: Yes, the experience of the body bound to its biology. Marxism in=20 its entirety is only a condition for a life in freedom, life in happiness,=20 life in possible fulfillment, life with content. Or: "Only when all the=20 guests have sat down at the table will the Messiah come." (Bloch). Redeemin= g=20 or rectifying; rectification, a Cuban term. Ta grande face de Meduse (toi=20 qui brille dans l'=E9clair et dans l'=E9meute). Or: "A map of the world that = does=20 not include Socialism is not worth reading." (Oscar Wilde). [KM]: Dear Buffalo Poetics List, please let me tell you a little=20 something about the vinyl plastic covering on your refrigerator racks, unles= s=20 you have plain metal ones, like I do. The vinyl arrives in the form of a=20 liquid gas, extremely hazardous, called Vinyl Liquid Chloride, in railroad=20 tank cars or by bulk truck. The gas is siphoned through the factory--called=20 the Poly Building--and at least in Illinois the end product is a 50lb.bag of=20 powdered resin that feels like cement to lift up, and Tim, the operator I=20 worked with there, agreed with me on that, that there's no heavier bag in th= e=20 world to lift than a bag of cement. I was spending a light day in the Lab,=20 and a guy was walking me through a simulated Fusion Test, the end result of=20 which is a Touch Test, where a little square of plastic you put the end of=20 your fingers to, and you can feel the difference, between what is a good run=20 of Plastic or Vinyl and what is a bad one, so that you learn to understand=20 all the work that goes into making plastic products like the covering of the=20 metal frames on the racks inside your refrigerator, which, if you have ever=20 thought about it, do not arrive from nowhere, but bear their cost, and this=20 is the cost: Bill, the first guy I worked with in the morning, could hardly=20 get his cup of coffee to his mouth, his hands were shaking that bad, and at=20 first I thought he was scared of me (that was my job, to inspire fear in the=20 workers, and invoke the specter of European manufacturing), but I came to=20 learn that the Lab is where they send the older guys who have begun to show=20 symptoms of chemical poisoning (it attacks your nerves), so that his badly,=20 and I mean severely, shaking hands were the product of his giving his life t= o=20 GEON, to the plant in Henry, Illinois, and the last few years of his life=20 would be spent in the Lab, a cush job, his hands shaking violently trying to=20 raise a cup of coffee to his mouth. The next time you open your=20 refrigerator, think of the human cost involved in preserving your food. I=20 have only been trying to tell you how I was thrown open to the world. [LM]: How, exactly, did your "situation" come about?=20 Writers throw up their hands and apologize for the racial=20 attitudes of white workers then and now, or, more recently, indict the=20 working class for a thoroughgoing racism. Jameson's point about the dialectical interrelatedness, in the=20 physical space and cultural institutions where it was produced, that=20 disarticulations of hegemony accompany periods of extreme capitalist crisis,=20 and growing social fissures, and accents of class and race become confused. I believe the reality was a good deal more contradictory than th= e=20 views recorded in the Police Gazette, perhaps, even, the word you left behin= d=20 you to escape at all, and slam the door on an State Education Compound not=20 far from where one of the guys at the break table knew where Hudson, South=20 Dakota was, a town of about 250 people, on the Iowa border, separated by the=20 Sioux River, worthy of the south of France in all its peasant simplicity and=20 beauty, the village where my mother's people come from, the Millers, changed=20 from Mueller at Ellis Island in 1914, and a 50 year old worker in a=20 petrochemical plant in Henry, Illinois knew exactly where that village was,=20 well, maybe that word you left behind you was less an articulation of=20 difference than a speculation about it, white and black, twin responses=20 sandwiched between or even substituting one for the other, using a name whic= h=20 unsettled the stable outlines of both. They were in any case understood to inhabit the bottom. Yet they were of no slight lineage, to use the familiar trope of=20 a lowly mechanic's inheritance, Jacksonian social relations all around, and=20 while it can scarcely be said that Kevin Magee always found himself on the=20 better side of the problem, he at least has the virtue of having brought the=20 problem to the surface. =20 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 23:16:47 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: Re: International festival of Postmodern Piracy Comments: cc: rice@salem.kent.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" did i miss the reports from this, did it happen, are there tapes, a website? forbidden plateau fallen body dojo 4 song st. nowhere, b.c. V0R1Z0 canadaddy zonko@mindless.com zonko ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 19:57:26 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brent Cunningham Subject: from the SPD vault Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" This list may have gotten too large for new folks to introduce themselves at any length, but even so I'd like to make everyone aware that I'm a good source for questions regarding SPD and SPD titles, both of which come up with some frequency on this list. Currently I'm working as their/our Sales Manager (full identity association has yet to take complete hold on me), and I've developed the habit of wandering through the stacks during breaks. If it seems relevant, I plan to pass on some of my findings. i.e. speaking of Jonas, I noticed that we still have seven copies of Steven Jonas's THREE POEMS (1989, Rose) at their original price of five dollars. Many used books stores are already selling THREE POEMS as rare. I've only gotten through the first poem, but it's an excellent piece of work. So, really, there are only six copies remaining. Brent Cunningham ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 20:39:42 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Max Winter Subject: Re: review of Lee Ann Brown's Polyverse MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Although I am rarely tempted to weigh in here, because I'm never entirely sure where "in" is, I will attempt to do such weighing, if only to agree with this reaction, and to suggest that reviews are only as influential as their readers make them. They are, by definition, works of opinion--and in so being, are always slightly "wrongheaded." That's one of a reviewer's highest privileges, I would say, although I realize it's not much of a privilege. (Compared to, say, the ability to fly, or eternal youth, or even a bag of magic rhizomes.) (None of which most reviewers should ever hope for.) I would also suggest that most of the people who would be Lee Ann Brown's best readers are not the sort who would read the Village Voice, or any other newspaper, without a certain amount of skepticism. One would hope they would read the book for themselves. Enough of my naive jawing. --- Mark Weiss wrote: > I've always found Lee Ann's poetry charming, and I > look forward to reading > her book, but I think this handwringing over a > wrongheaded review is a > little strange, and more a testimony to how much a > lot of us like Lee Ann > than anything else. Surely I'm not the only list > member who's been reviewed > by clueless reviewers--sometimes they even praise > facets of the work that > are their own invention, which, frankly, doesn't > feel a lot better than > negative comment. Isn't this the risk we take when > we go public? Isn't this > especially true if we write in innovative ways? > > It is a shame that the review appeared in such a > public venue. Complaining > about it here is preaching to the choir: a letter to > the editor might be > more useful. > _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 13:26:28 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Kirschenbaum Subject: "Anselm Berrigan is Flying to France" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Anselm Berrigan is Flying to France Anselm's voice on my machine says he is flying to France to visit his mom and stepdad. Former New York Yankee catcher Thurman Munson died on this day 20 years ago, practicing takeoffs and landings in his single-engine Cessna. I machine wish Anselm safe flight, hang up phone and Grandma Minnie spray-spit "Poi-poi-poi." ______________________________________________________________________ Be Good, David _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 14:43:45 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: The National Autonomous University of Mexico strike MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The following article is from this morning's NPR , but I've been unable to find much information in U.S. papers. A summary of the strike, which began on 20 April in response to the privatization of the university - and accompanying increase in tuition from two cents to $150 per year, in a country where minimum wage is approx. $2.50 US/day - is available at . Other citations would be much appreciated. Chris -- Mexican School Strike Classes at Mexico's largest university were supposed to start this week, but hundreds of thousands of striking students boycotted the return to class. The National Autonomous University of Mexico remains closed for a fourth month, and university officials say the semester has been indefinitely suspended. It appears that the strike, which was sparked by tuition increases, has broadened into a struggle over the future of Mexico and a protest of Mexico's embrace of the global free market economy. from [RealAudio broadcast available at URL] ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 14:52:49 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Subject: Gwyn McVay Is Taking The Metro In-Reply-To: <19990817172628.82488.qmail@hotmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Gwyn McVay Is Taking The Metro I rock back on my butt bones and know that in about two hours I will be taking the DC Metro. On this day many years ago talk-poet Frank O'Hara was probably taking the Noo Yawk subway, and writing about it. I silent wish myself sharp elbows and rapid flight to the dreary burbs and this poem and a buck will get me there. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 13:32:53 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aldon Nielsen Subject: screening noir Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The new issue of SCREENING NOIR is on-lone: http://humanitas.ucsb.edu/~everett/news_letter/vol2iss23/intro.html ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 10:34:29 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jack Ruttan Organization: axess.com Subject: Fw: NORTH AMERICAN LAUNCHES OF BUDAVOX: POEMS 1990-1999 BY TODD SWIFT MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Subject:Fw: NORTH AMERICAN LAUNCHES OF BUDAVOX: POEMS 1990-1999 BY TODD SWIFT Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 19:29:12 +0200 From: "Todd Swift" To: "Todd Swift" The long-awaited North American launch(es) of the first major collection of poems - Budavox: poems 1990-1999 - from exiled Canadian writer/impresario Todd Swift ... SEPTEMBER 27TH, 1999 MONDAY, 7:00 PM INCOMMUNICADO PRESS/ BOOKSTORE 107 Norfolk Street, New York (between Delancey & Rivington) SEPTEMBER 30TH, 1999 THURSDAY, 8:30 PM BLIZZART'S Montreal, Canada Followed by a book tour with readings in Toronto, Kingston and Ottawa - between October 1st and October 7th (dates and venues to be announced). For more information, contact Todd Swift in Budapest at Tel: (361) 337-7350 or Email swift@pronet.hu :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: What poets are saying about Swift's Budavox : Nicole Blackman (poet/performer, author of Blood Sugar):"Luminous, unexpected, lovely and unsettling, the images resonate long after the poems have ended." Regie Cabico (NY performance poet, co-editor Poetry Nation):"Swift's eerie verse transforms suspicion to the lyrical. Kevin Spacey shakes hands with Catullus, savage and gentlemanly. He concocts Eros and murder in the sharp prisms of his imagination. The results: a deliciously carnivorous and ironic language." Derek Mahon (Irish poet, author of The Yellow Book): "Swift is a voice for our times." George Szirtes (British poet, author of Selected Poems, Oxford University Press, 1996) : "Swift's poems move between the familiar and exotic, from the meditative through the speculative. His poetic language too is on the move, from the crisp tentativeness of Elizabeth Bishop to the outer suburbs of Wallace Stevens and even, here and there, Ginsberg. The intimate is always threatened: reality is challenged by its myths. These poems show a young man exploring the world before him with intelligence, grace, even a certain bravado. They make a very auspicious first collection." Adeena Karasick (poet/performer, author of Genrecide, Talon Books, 1996): "An intensely lyrical, speculative, contemplative interrogation of all that is twisted, wounded, awe-filled and desperate... writing that is dark, swollen and balanced with great beauty." Robert Priest (poet/performer, author of Resurrection in the Cartoon, ECW Press, 1997): "Complex, mysterious triggering poems often full of dark currents and understated hostilities that ruffle the feathers and unsettle - as good poetry should." :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Todd Swift is one of the most exciting and eclectic writers to emerge in the late 90s. Over the past decade he has continuously explored new genres and themes - writing in a variety of styles - for TV, film, radio, stage and the printed page. Currently Guest Lecturer in The American Studies department at ELTE University, he also runs Kacat Kabare - the first-ever Magyar/English poetry performance series in Budapest, Hungary. A poetry activist, Swift is internationally involved with the promotion of poets, through his various cabaret events and related projects. As editor of the groundbreaking anthologies Map-Makers' Colors: New Poets of Northern Ireland (1988) - and Poetry Nation: The North American Anthology of Fusion Poets (1998) with Regie Cabico, he has helped to establish the poet as key figure at the end of the millennium. As "Swifty Lazarus" (an electronic/sound duo with Tom Walsh) he has written the words for José Navas' acclaimed dance piece Sterile Fields (which premiered at the St. Marks Dance Space in 1996). "Swifty"'s track History Is Dead/Read My Lips is featured on the new Wired On Words CD Millennium Cabaret. Also a screenwriter, his work's been produced by the CBC, Cinar, Paramount, Fox and HBO. His feature film script Fugue State is currently in pre-production. >From 1995 to 1997 Swift hosted Montreal's Vox Hunt Slam series, the first Canadian performance poetry cabaret. In 1997 Alliance Quebec voted him "Young Anglophone of the Year" in the Arts category. He is a full member of The League of Canadian Poets. Swift's poetry and prose has appeared/is due to appear in many major publications, including: Gargoyle; Prism International; Matrix; Quarry; Himself (Ireland); and Budapest Style. Budavox: poems 1990-1999 (DC Books, 1999) is his first full collection of poems, surveying a decade of remarkably active and compelling creativity. -- http://www.axess.com/users/jackr ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 12:09:30 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: John Tranter Subject: Diego Rivera mural rescussitated Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The list may find this of interest. The story is borrowed from Wired Magazine's news page, at http://www.wired.com/news/ ================================================= New Media Boosts an Old Mural by Kendra Mayfield 3:00 a.m. 17.Aug.99.PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- When Mexico's master artist Diego Rivera created the mural Pan American Unity for the 1940 World's Fair, he fused images of art and technology to unite the peoples of the United States, Canada, and Mexico. World War II interrupted plans for a library to display the mural. It remained hidden until Rivera's death in 1957, when it was transported to the San Francisco City College theater, where it remains today -- widely unknown to the public. See also: 'Web Seance' Summons Art A new multimedia project hopes to revive Rivera's ideas in the digital and virtual realm. An interactive kiosk and Web site, launches 18 August at City College. They will attempt to restore the mural to public prominence, even as it returns to Rivera's theme of blending art and technology. "The mural represents a powerful historical statement of what has gone on in this century," said Julia Bergman, City College archivist. The multimedia project will expose the public to one of Rivera's most significant and unrecognized masterpieces, she said, "a work of art that is so universal for so many people." Blending images of Mexican art and North American technology and innovation, Rivera's mural examines the convergence of ancient techniques and contemporary art. Ancient Mayan figures are juxtaposed with inventors from the Industrial Revolution like Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. Revolutionary South American heroes join North American political leaders to fight Nazism and preserve peace by extending the arts. In the center of the mural, a Canadian sculpting with an ax symbolizes the metamorphosis between old art forms and new techniques. "My mural ... is about the marriage of the artistic expression of the North and of the South on this continent," said Rivera in a 1940 interview. The artist envisioned "... this blending of the art of the Indian, the Mexican, the Eskimo, with the kind of urge which makes the machine." The current project revives Rivera's ideas of combining old ways of thinking in a modern context, using new, interactive methods to present the fresco to the public. The kiosk exhibit reflects the mural, with a wood and steel nautilus shell combining modern and ancient materials. Using a touch-screen, users can view the imagery of the 22-by-70 foot mural, its fresco technique, and its checkered history. Users can virtually enter the Aztec god figure of Quetzalcoatl and end up in a control room, where they can navigate within the mural. Viewers can zoom in on images to examine intricate brushstrokes and words hidden within the upper panels of the fresco. Sketches and drawings of Aztec figures morph from stone statues to polished images. The kiosk will feature film clips, which Rivera believed represented the perfect blending of art and technology. Viewers can tour the mural, listening to Rivera's voice while watching clips of some of the people who shaped the artist's life. "The motion picture is the ultimate development of mural painting," said Rivera in a 1940 interview, "and is the most original contribution to art made by North American culture." The portable kiosk will travel to schools and museums in the United States and Mexico as an experiment in distance-learning. With universal themes of diversity and multiculturalism that still resonate today, the mural offers an educational tool for teachers wanting to expose students to the art of mural-making and the history surrounding the mural. The exhibit may offer up to 40 courses, with CDs for teachers to distribute in computer labs. Educators may use Rivera's ideas to teach courses promoting cultural identity. Creative director Richard Rodrigues wants to create a distance-learning project in which a student in Mexico can interact with a student in California, or view restoration of the mural in real time through an onsite view cam. He hopes that learning about the mural's history will make kids think twice about defacing public buildings with graffiti. The mural kiosk is unique, because similar projects tend to cover many works of art. This one offers viewers a way to "look at a piece of art like no one has before," said Rodrigues. As the exhibit travels from place to place, students may add their own graphic panels to the mural by scanning images that will be added to the exhibit. Individual artists can generate ideas and images from the mural, becoming mural-makers themselves. =============================================== from John Tranter, editor, Jacket magazine ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 02:49:29 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lynn Miller Subject: from a Talk on Class MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit SHOWING WHERE SLAVERY'S SHADOWS ALSO FALL (Part One). 3/27[95] Sunrise. Upper West Side. Manhattan. Aife's story of the servant's handwriting on the other side of the poet's manuscript --Maher/Dickinson--allegorized. That by the time Steve Abbott writes the Conversations and dedicates them to Spicer--how fraught is this dedication? The way in which Spicer's "infinitely small vocabulary" and grammar/syntax control mechanisms--that force of repression is so acute in his text--that the social/historical Real and his sexuality both enter in eruption (not the sexuality--the sexuality is key--its what opens up the Dictation--and the Poetics of Dictation and call to the Imaginary is key to read what was happening in the post-war years, what Blaser/Spicer/Duncan were on to. (Read the Olson/Creeley correspondence against this). 3/28[95] In flight, across the continent. Layers/Stages/Phases of RELEASE. Repression. On a cultural field. Closure. What erupts. What comes through--into the open [in distorted form]. 1. "O women women look how my words flow out"--The eruption of subjectivity, oceanic imaginary. The ghost of Dickinson in the ACTS Spicer issue, where is she? Killian's "Attention: Harlot" or in the French, Guglielmi's French? Un trou dans l'imagination. Invagination. Anal inscription. 2. Queering. Perversions of control. Determined functions. Graphic exposure. What is unsexed ("unfucking"). The Imaginary. The Utopian. The Land of Oz. "Somewhere over the Rainbow." 3. Postcolonial. Translation. The cultural/historical. The call to the cultural/historical conditions of social intercourse. The metaphor of opening up to infection from foreign agents/tongues. Dream of the possibility of putting an end to Western/Eastern-Northern/Southern borders. Imminent degeneration of the English language--Dante's Latin--"Immigration Song." "The Lemon Song." I remember Led Zeppelin I remember somewhere back there in the University reading a book by a Russian cultural critic whose last name started with a K and the first names that pop up are Kropotkin and Kruschev--bizarre substitutions--and then Kolokethias--though that one's Greek, and the name of the woman I spoke with on the phone calling from Iowa to San Francisco for information about the Jack Spicer conference--all I remember from that conversation now was that she said "O, wow,"--something I associated with California, the idea of California--Sherman Paul having claimed in a class that Gary Snyder was the first one to put "Wow" in a poem--but it wasn't in Sherman Paul's class that I was reading a book with a Moscow imprint--it was in the seminar of a professor who was denied tenure--(once on a panel about Art & Politics in the Weimar period he prefaced--recontextualized--his remarks by drawing attention to the U.S. bombing raid over Libya the day or two before--the raid that killed Khadafy's child--and this child showed up again when I was in Nicaragua--there was a free daycare center for factory workers named after her--I must have been struck enough by that--since I took a photograph of a child's painting that was on the wall of a hospital and rehab center for amputees--the drawing of a child standing on one leg (Spicer's seagull--my displacement of Spicer's seagull--and, yes, Ron, it's hard to think of anything less pure than a seagull's belly--except for a child's mind--the perversity of children--polymorphous perverse--and receivers of all casualties (I almost wrote casualties)--only a child in their intense inhabitation of the Imaginary could return the reality of war in a perfect image--a child looking like all the world like a crippled seagull--because it is unnatural to have your arms or legs blown off--whether you are 7 or 37 or 77--man woman or child--relative terms, all of them--I was thinking about Moscow--another relative term. This Russian cultural critic was drawing attention to the crippled talent of Jimmy Page--the division of labor in the making of art--that the Rock Star phenomenon has tragic dimensions--you become an icon--removed from both the club scene and the black music you stole--you get removed from your class--the absolute, fundamental condition for every artist in America from the working class no matter what art you make--high or low--and Jack Spicer wrote a high art that never forgot the low--and now that he's released his first CD and a Mystery Novel it's going to be interesting to see whether the terms of this new stage in his popularity will depend on bracketing out the "class" thing. There was this thing at the 1986 conference--something that carried into Bruce Boone's comment, his statement in the ACTS issue, "the little of Jack Spicer that remains"--the dislocation or dislodging that conference represented from the MANROOT context--that the body of work signed Jack Spicer was being opened up to a larger reading/audience and what happens when that happens--and what was happening then?--not in the conference, per se, but outside? [Memory of Boone's comment about the disappearance of a radical gay community (no, I don't think there was any lesbian presence at that conference--the panelists were all male as were the contributors to the Spicer ACTS), something about co-optation--it was an offhand remark, but it had an economic content--]. What was in the MANROOT that gets mutated--softened--in the Spicer ACTS? "Three Marxist Essays" from THE SAN FRANCISCO CAPITALIST BLOODSUCKER-N. In the Spicer ACTS, there is a comment by Michael Davidson that Marxism-Leninism is a "safe" ideological position, and a typo in the text of his talk which leaves out the "i" and turns 'communism' into 'communsm'; Kevin Killian's displacement of Spicer's Martian's with the possibility of a poetics of Anonymity, "Anonymous is method of writing coming at you from unknown direction without a good reason"; a fascinating remark by Lew Ellingham about just how wide Spicer's work was opening at the end of his life, including the return of Trotsky--"Trotskyite bandits from the hills"--a wild return and recovery from the imperious and dead wrong suppression of "Lili who worked in the canneries" in the first pages of Robert Duncan's H.D. BOOK; Ron Silliman's recycling of the same line, "Trotskyite bandits from the hills" and displacement of Dictation with Translation (supplementing Spicer with Benjamin), which moves him into a reading of a Spicer with a far more theoretical grip on the problem of naming than someone like myself can read who wants to read, instead, the eruptions of Sex and Class that happen there; and then there is the marvel of Robin Blaser's anecdotal aside--that Emma Goldman and Rosa Luxumberg were heroines in Jack's mind, and that he never forgave the circumstances of his own birth, purchased at the cost of his father leaving the radical labor politics of the I.W.W. "Somehow never to forgive your own birth," Blaser said, thinking aloud. The trauma that the Art of Poetry represents for anyone coming out of conditions of cultural illiteracy. That includes all of us, you might say. No. Some can buy it, and some can't. Them that can't, that don't have it--on an economic level--dollars & cents--"for 15 cents I could ride a subway in New York" (Spicer's notebook fragment late '64) experience this lack--internalize this lack--and what you get from it is layers, walls of impediments when it comes to writing--the poetic act--impediments that run as deep if not deeper than speech impediments--we've been speaking their language for so long we no longer have one of our own--if we ever did have one--at least those of us who speak English--these impediments have everything to do with Repression--sexuality is, again, a common denominator, and, again, the "class" thing, is obscure, gets obscured--that the impediment so much a part of the consciousness of social class has to do with perceptions of the right to knowledge--that all property is theft--to quote Steve Abbott's introductory remarks to THE LIZARD CLUB, that all knowledge is property--if these are extreme positions, I would only want to add that the division of society into classes puts us in an extreme condition. [Note: This is the first part of a talk on CLASS held at my home on a panel which included Kathy Lou Schultz on Karen Brodine, and Aife Murray on Dickinson/Maher in the spring of 1995. I don't remember very many people being there that night (not to take away from the handful who came). The subject of social class was of course a bit of a problem, but I also had the impression--perhaps mistaken, or exaggerated--based on casual conversations and at least one letter--that Steve Abbott was more or less an obscure, if not difficult figure, hard to figure out. An enigma, not unlike James Clarence Mangan. The remainder of this talk seeks to place him as a North American Attila Jozsef, whose pronounced leftism and proto-communism meant a lot to me, though I was appalled to learn during the course of my last visit to SF of the willful, symptomatic forgetting of the (1981?) LEFT/WRITE conference (at least nobody'd ever mentioned it to me) more or less erased from history? Why? What happened? Who read? I think the event documents are buried in a couple of boxes in somebody's basement.] ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 12:21:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joseph Conte Organization: SUNY at Buffalo Subject: Postmodern Piracy at Kent, Salem MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The Postmodern Piracy festival did occur, gracefully hosted by Doug Rice. There were, I think some reports on the proceedings back in June. Doug is editing a collection of essays from the conference, tentatively to be published by Purdue UP. There was a conference website at: http://www.salem.kent.edu/conf/nobo/nobodaddies.html Joseph Conte ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 12:36:16 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Carter Subject: crosscurrentseas: waves "writing" e-list as you see/be it becomes aspiralling Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" riddle announcement hear: "we" got a new though now not so new though still relatively new tracing/ marking/re-marking/lacing/stitching/collaging/interpolating/intertexting/ weaving/knitting/sewing/sowing/disseminating/writing list here that "we" started, could be that you started it too, so "we" might well be "you" too (U-2?). it's basically an anarkisstic, chaos, free-associational, collaborative, type type thing, like a group o' folks (though right now the the number of members relatively small, about 36 or so) playing/singing music, dancing t' music, together, only we'd be writing together. though there would be no stipulation that anybody had to collaborate. one could write by one's l(onesome) and let everyone see what they came up with or one could do whatever, individually and/or collaboratively with one or more or no others. who knows how it would/could all work out or not?!. right now the list is called "crosscurrentseas", but that could very well be changed to reflect the intuition/vision/desire/dream/imagination/thought/feeling of the group. to subscribe or unsubscribe or to access archives go to: http://crosscurrentseas.listbot.com/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 11:29:17 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dodie Bellamy Subject: Re: from a Talk on Class In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" At 2:49 AM -0400 8/18/99, Lynn Miller wrote: >though I was appalled to learn during the course of my last visit >to SF of the willful, symptomatic forgetting of the (1981?) LEFT/WRITE >conference (at least nobody'd ever mentioned it to me) more or less erased >from history? Why? What happened? Who read? I think the event documents >are buried in a couple of boxes in somebody's basement.] Come on, Kevin Magee, there is no conspiracy against forgetting Steve Abbott and the leftwrite conference. I would hardly call someone not mentioning something to you willful forgetting. When his daughter Alysia was here on father's day and gave a talk on Steve at A Different Light Bookstore, it was well-publicized and well attended. She's put up a wonderful and popular website in Steve's honor: http://www.steveabbott.com In July it was chosen as yahoo's new site of the day and Alysia excitedly wrote us that it got 600 visitors the next day and a half: http://dir.yahoo.com/new/19990714.html I know a number of younger writers in SF very much interested in Steve's work. And, as you well know, Kevin Killian is Steve's executor, and Steve's papers are not in somebody's basement somewhere--they're in a dry safe storage compartment for which we pay $$$$ for every month. Kevin's trying to get Steve's papers archived, but there's been snags there. Being an executor is a thankless task. Gibes like this are uncalled for. Dodie ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 15:01:48 CST6CDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hank Lazer Organization: The University of Alabama Subject: Paul Naylor's new book Of possible interest to List-ers, Paul Naylor's hot off the press _Poetic Investigations: Singing the Holes in History_ (Northwestern University Press). Paul's book of criticism looks like a good one. Contents Introduction: Writing History Poetically 1. Susan Howe: Where Are We Now in Poetry? 2. Nathaniel Mackey: The "Mired Sublime" 3. Lyn Hejinian: Investigating "I" 4. Kamau Brathwaite: Tidalectic Rhythms 5. M. Nourbese Philip: "Dis Placing" Him Naylor's writing draws on the work of Wittgenstein, Kristeva, Laclau, Mouffe, Benjamin, and de Certeau. As the editor of River City Review, he published lots of important writing by Brathwaite, Nourbese Philip, Mackey, and others. My review copy arrived a couple of days ago--no price listed. Perhaps Rod Smith or someone else knows what the price is.... Hank Lazer ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 16:28:04 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kenneth Goldsmith Subject: The American Century Pt. II at the Whitney: Sound WorksCalendar Comments: To: editor@ubu.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The American Century Part II at The Whitney Museum of American Art: Sound Works Calendar Here is the calendar for January: I Am Sitting In A Room: Sound Works by American Artists: 1950-2000 Curated by Stephen Vitiello Advisors: Dara Birnbaum, Kenneth Goldsmith, Chrissie Iles, Alvin Lucier, Paul D. Miller, Barbara Moore, Ikue Mori, Bruce Nauman, Pauline Oliveros, Jim O'Rourke TUESDAY January 11, 2000 12:00 John Cage, Series ray Morris Graves, 1974, 86:00 A reading from the text, which appears in its entirety in the book Empty Words: Writings 1973-78, by John Cage. Courtesy of The John Cage Trust 1:30 Alvin Lucier, I Am Sitting In A Room (for voice on tape), 1970, 45:21 (Lovely Music, Ltd., 1990 LCD 1013) Nicolas Collins, PEA SOUP, 1974, 15:00 (recorded 1999) (Courtesy of the artist) 3:00 Bruce Nauman, Record, 1969, 32:00. Sound Track from First Violin Film; Violin Problem No. 2, Rhythmic Stamping (Four Rhythms in Preparation for Video Tape Problems). Published by Tanglewood Press. Edition of 100. Collection of The Whitney Museum of American Art 4:30 Bill Fontana, Sounds from Sculpture Kirribilli Wharf, Sydney, 1976, 2:53 excerpt Sound Sculpture with a Sequence of Level Crossings, Oakland, 1982, 10:41 Oscillating Steel Grids along the Brooklyn Bridge, 1983, 3:00 Oscillating Steel Grids along the Brooklyn Bridge, 1983, 5:00 Sound Sculpture through the Golden Gate, 1987, 11:09 Alison Knowles, Bean Sequences/Bohnen Sequenz, broadcast 1982, 29:05. Performers: Alison Knowles and Klaus Schoning, George Brecht and Jessica Higgins. Courtesy of WDR, Cologne. WEDNESDAY January 12, 2000 12:00 Annea Lockwood, A Sound Map Of The Hudson River, 1989, 120:00 (Courtesy of the artist) 2:15 Glenn Gould, The Idea of North, 1967, 58:56 (CBC Records, PSCD 2003-3) 3:15 Alvin Lucier, Music On A Long Thin Wire, 72:00 (Lovely Music LCD 1011.) 4:30 Steve Reich, Come Out, 1966 (Reich Music Publications, BMI. CD released by Nonesuch), 1966 12:54 Paul Miller (aka DJ Spooky), Prosthetica 2000, 1999, 48:00 (courtesy of the artist and Music + Art Management) THURSDAY January 13, 2000 12:00 Philip Glass, Music in Twelve Parts, 1974, 206:00 (Nonesuch Records 79324-2) 3:30 Laetitia Sonami, What Happened, 1987, 7:04. Text: Melody Sumner Carnahan (from Imaginary Landscapes compilation CD, Nonesuch Records) Laetitia Sonami, Has/Had, 1997, 11:09. Text: Melody Sumner Callaghan (courtesy of the artist) Ellen Fullman, Harmonic Cross Sweep: Overtone Series of C Chord Progression (5:06) and Backward Bunny Hop (2:48) from the CD Change of Direction, New Albion Records, (NA 102 CD) Terry Riley, Mescalin Mix, 1960-62, 14:17 (Cortical Foundation) 4:30 John Cage, Williams Mix (1952), from: The 25-Year Retrospective Concert of the Music of John Cage, recorded in performance at Town Hall, New York, May 15, 1958. Wergo. (c) Edition Peters. David Tudor, WEB for John Cage, broadcast 1987, 4:00. Produced on the occasion of NachtCageTag. Courtesy of WDR, Cologne. Christian Marclay, Record without a Cover, 1985, 19:36 (Locus Solus) Jim O'Rourke, Rules of Reduction, 1993, 16:52 (Metamkine MKCD009) 6:00 Allan Kaprow, 18 Happenings in 6 Parts, 1958, four channels, 7:00 each (courtesy of the artist) Maryanne Amacher, "Living Sound Patent Pending (St. Paul 1980)" MUSIC FOR SOUND-JOINED ROOMS SERIES (1980- ). Dual channel remastered excerpts: 16'; 11' (courtesy of the artist) FRIDAY January 14, 2000 12:00 Robert Ashley, String Quartet Describing the Motion of Large Real Bodies, 1972, 25:00. Performers: Robert Ashley: violin, Sam Ashley and "Blue" Gene Tyranny: Moog Synthesizer processing. (courtesy of Alga Marghen Moltrasio (como), Italy and Lovely Music Ltd.) David Behrman, Runthrough, 1967-68, 12:09. Performers: Robert Ashley, Alvin Lucier, Gordon Mumma and David Behrman. (plana-B 5NMN.020, courtesy of Lovely Music Ltd.) Gordon Mumma, Hornpipe (courtesy of Lovely Music Ltd.) 1:30 Charlotte Moorman program - including live concert recording with Nam June Paik, Aachen 1966 (Courtesy of the Estate of Charlotte Moorman) 3:00 Paul De Marinis, Pygmy Gamelan, 1973, 9:32 (Lovely Music, 1978 publication) Gordon Monahan, Speaker Swinging, 1987, 24:30 (GM 002) Terry Fox, Berlin Attic Wire, Beating, 1981, 24:44 (Edition S Press & Plate Lunch PL 06) Ikue Mori, Garden, 1996, excerpts (Tzadik 7020) 4:30 Vito Acconci, Ten Packed Minutes, 1977, 12:47 musical excerpts from the recordings of Leon Redbone, Cow Cow Davenport, Eric Dolphy, Karl Berger and Ornette Coleman. From the lp Airwaves, One Ten Records 001/2, 1977 Laurie Anderson, Two Songs for Tape Bow Violin: Ethics is the Esthetics of the Few-ture (Lenin), Song for Juanita, 1977, 4:06 Laurie Anderson, Is Anybody Home, 1976, 4:27 - for boat horn, camera, stairs, piano and voice From the lp Airwaves, One Ten Records 001/2, 1977 Dara Birnbaum, Bruckner's Symphony No. 5 in B Dur', in collaboration with TOMANDANDY, 1995, 10 min. 34 sec (courtesy of the artist) Cecil Taylor, 5'66, from the album Chinampas / Leo Records Vito Acconci, Running Tape, 1969, 30:00 (courtesy of the artist) SATURDAY January 15, 2000 12:00 Alvin Lucier, I Am Sitting In A Room (for voice on tape), 1970/1990, 45:21 (Lovely Music, Ltd., 1990 LCD 1013) Nicolas Collins, PEA SOUP, 1974, 15:00 (recorded 1999) (courtesy of the artist) David Tudor, WEB for John Cage, broadcast 1987, 4:00. Produced on the occasion of NachtCageTag. Courtesy of WDR, Cologne. 1:30 Tony Oursler with Larry Miller, Possession (Guitar, Conversation, Drum, Song, Growl), 1986, 16:00 minutes (courtesy of the artist) Mike Kelley, The Peristaltic Airwaves, 1986, 39:00. Performed live on KPFK Radio, Los Angeles (courtesy of the artist) Lou Reed, Metal Machine Music: An Electronic Instrumental Composition, 1975 16:00 (excerpt) (BMG/RCA ND 90670) 3:00 John Cage, Series ray Morris Graves, 1974, 86:00 A reading from the text, which appears in its entirety in the book Empty Words: Writings 1973-78, by John Cage. Courtesy of The John Cage Trust 4:30 Glenn Branca, Symphony No. 1 (Tonal Plexus), 1981, 11:46 excerpt (ROIR RUSCD 8245) Tony Conrad, Four Violins, 1964, 32:30 (Table of the Elements) Pauline Oliveros, I of IV, 1966, 25:30 (Paradigm Discs PD 04) SUNDAY January 16, 2000 12:00 Bob Bielecki and Connie Kieltykya, Field Recordings, 1987-88, 40:00 (courtesy of the artists) David Tudor, Rainforest version 1 (1968) 21:47 for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Performed by David Tudor and Takehisa Kosugi. (Mode 64) 1:30 Ken Nordine, The Sound Museum,from "The Best of Word Jazz, Vol. 1" (Rhino Records, 1990, RS 70773), originally from "Word Jazz" (Dot Jazz Horizons), 1957, 7:09 Coyle and Sharpe, Maniacs in a Living Hell, from the LP "The Insane (but Hilarious) Minds of Coyle and Sharpe (Warner Brothers W1573), originally broadcast on KGO radio in San Francisco, early 1960s. 5:30 William S. Burroughs + Brion Gysin, Recalling All Active Agents, made for the BBC, 1960, 1:25 (from the CD "William S. Burroughs, Break Through in the Grey Room", Sub Rosa Aural Documents, SUBCD006-8). Negativland, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For "U2," SST Records (SSTCD 272), 1991 A Capella Mix 7:21 Special Edit Radio Mix 5:51 Gregory Whitehead, Dead Letters: A Broadcast Colloquium, 1994 (CD, Staalplaat STCD 091) Part 1: The Philographer, 17:00 Charles Amirkhanian, Church Car, Version 2, recorded 1981, 2:55 from the LP "Mental Radio" (CRI SD 523). Pamela Z, Geekspeak , 1995, 7:32 (Sonic Circuits 4 / INNOVA) Edwin Torres, Holy Kid (Kill Rock Stars): 1-Non Musical Noises (:10) 2-Untitled Eternity (1:28) 3-A Wutherance of E (2:48) 4-We Speak Say Nothing (Looking for the Frog Boys) (2:56) Joan La Barbara and Kenneth Goldsmith, 73 Poems, 1994, 7:42 (excerpt: Poems 1-15) (Lovely Music Ltd.) 3:00 FluxTellus Program selection by Barbara Moore. Produced as Tellus #24, 1990 cassette release, (courtesy of Harvestworks, NY). 65:00 Thomas Schmit, No. 13 from Sanitas-200 Theatre Pieces, 1962. Recorded NYC, March 28-April 11, 1990. George Brecht&James Tenney with George Maciunas, Entrance...(excerpt), 1962. Recorded Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ, 1962. Emmett Williams, Voice Piece for La Monte Young, 1963. Recorded Studio PASS, NYC, March 28, 29 and April 4, 1990. Thomas Schmit, No. 13... Joe Jones, Flux Music Box, 1966. Recorded Studio PASS, NYC, March 15, 1990. Thomas Schmit, No. 13... Jackson Mac Low, A Piece for Sari Dienes, 1960. Performers: Jackson Mac Low and Anne Tardos. Recorded Studio PASS, NYC, March 28, 1990. Thomas Schmit, No. 13... La Monte Young, "89 VI 8 c. 1:42-1:52 AM Paris Encore" from Poem for Chairs, Table, Benches, etc., 1960. Performance under the direction of La Monte Young. Presented by Galerie, 1900/2000/ Recorded by Jean-Marc Foussat, L'Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris, June 8, 1989. Thomas Schmit, No. 13... Philip Corner, Carrot Chew Piece Performance, 1964. Performer: Phillip Corner. Recorded Studio PASS, NYC, April 4, 1990. Thomas Schmit, No. 13... Dick Higgins, Danger Music Number Seventeen, 1962. Performer: Dick Higgins. Recorded Kingston, NY, March 8, 1990. Thomas Schmit, No. 13... George Brecht&James Tenney with George Maciunas,...Exit (excerpt), 1962. Recorded Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ, 1962. Thomas Schmit, No. 13... George Maciunas, Solo for Lips and Tongue (ensemble), 1961-1077. From videotape recorded by Larry Miller at The Kitchen, NYC, NYC. March 24, 1979. Thomas Schmit, No. 13... Yasunao Tone, Anagram for Strings, 1961 (published 1963). Performers: Malcom Goldstein, Takehisa Kosugi. Recorded Studio PASS, NYC, March 29 and April 4, 1990. Thomas Schmit, No. 13... Alison Knowles, Nivea Cream Piece-for Oscar (Emmett) Williams, 1962. Performers: Alison Knowles, Ingrid Dinter. Recorded Studio PASS, NYC, March 29, 1990. Thomas Schmit, No. 13... Takehisa Kosugi, Micro 1, 1962. Performer: Yasunao Tone. Recorded Studio PASS, NYC, April 4, 1990. Thomas Schmit, No. 13... Emmett Williams, Cellar Song for Five Voices, circa 1960. Presented by the S.E.M. Ensemble. Recorded by Mikhail Liberman at Paula Cooper Gallery, NYC, Feb. 6, 1990. Thomas Schmit, No. 13... Robert Watts and Larry Miller, Laff Trace (excerpt), 1983. Performer: George Maciunas, Tape collage by Miller frm original tape recorded by Watts, Mountainville, NJ, 1968. 4:30 Steve Reich, Come Out, 1966 (Reich Music Publications, BMI. CD released by Nonesuch), 1966 12:54 Paul Miller (aka DJ Spooky), Prosthetica 2000, 1999, 48:00 (courtesy of the artist ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 19:51:45 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gerald Schwartz Subject: Re: "Anselm Berrigan is Flying to France" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit LAUTREAMONT IS FLYING FROM FRANCE Isidore's aphrodisiac is eating what's left of my soul thighs covered with camellias are flying from France to spit on sacred axions vermn and insinuating titillations. Verlaine, Jarry --all sucking on this timeless stretch of rack playing with blocks... I jet blood as a wish for Ducasse greeting the genuine lunatics locked up in Bedlam Be good, Gerald ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 18:17:28 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Takayuki Kiyooka In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Does anyone out there know anything about the fiction writer Takayuki Kiyooka? All I know is that he wrote a story called "The Acacias of Dalian" and that he lived a while in Manchukuo. George Bowering. , fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 21:23:49 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lynn Miller Subject: Headline: " feared dead in quake" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable --TRANSFER INTERRUPTED-- 27.2.96 -- KURDISTAN "And from the mountains bright armies will come down." Nazim Hikmet "Yes, my comrade, I have many memories to remember you. Do you want me to be blurred in your memory? Not the afternoons you showed up for counted hours. I=92ve still had a sweet taste of this unfinished. Somewhere long before we are old. (So fun[n]y, like song words isn=92t it). Congratulations for the book. Yes, you did it. From your lines I couldn=92t get a clue that you want to go on. What=92s going on between U.S. and Cuba? In Turkey, there is c[h]aos. People are in fear. The radical religious activities are getting stronger and a new socialist-based party was established named as "Freedom and Solidarity" open to marginals too. We know that they have only one recipe =3D IMF tight money policies. PKK in December declared cease-fire. So, now there are some skirmishes. The party is tired and losing blood. I=92m reading the novel by Isabel Allende. I finished translation of a story by an Iranian writer to English. It=92s a kid story. You read it, correct my definite mistakes and read it to Malcolm, please. My English knowledge has faced with erosion rapidly. I=92ve been translating the Moscow Diary at the snail=92s pace. Last month, I watched a movie named as Land & Freedom. I went to a movie called Burnt by the Sun. About Stalin- period later than 1930s. I have to stop smoking, unfortunately. My heart is making some small jokes. May be by Spring I will fall in love again." ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 22:51:03 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark W Scroggins Subject: NYC events In-Reply-To: <37BADD9F.65EA1BE@acsu.buffalo.edu> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Could somebody backchanngel me with the URL of that NYC poetry events site? I seem to have inadvertantly deleted it. thanks, Mark Scroggins ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 31 Jul 1999 07:24:36 +0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Maria L. Zavialov" Organization: IREX/IATP Subject: Bolsheviks and feminism MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear Lynn I read your post on Bolsheviks and feminism. You mention Zhenotdel in your post. My grandmother was the head of Zhenotdel after WWII in a provincial town. She was a very active woman and power-lusty. Even in the family my Granny ruled the waves. My grandfather couldn't cope with the regime and receded into his private realm of hunting and fishing, of course he worked, everybody had to work, he was a butcher, but he even had no idea how to pay rent (the very sight of bills switched him off) so removed he was from any kind of beaurocracy. The feminism then had to do predominantly with power. The Bolsheviks' was a strange sort of feminism. The Party was (not only claimed to be but somehow was) the carrier (or embodiment but carrier here is a better word) of all ideology and spirituality, of all things immaterial. I remember back in the 70s there were slogans everywhere in St. Petersburg (Leningrad it was then) like this: The Party is the Mind, Honour and Conscience of our Epoch. See what I mean? So the Party was the Feminism of our Epoch too. And when it collapsed, when the frame collapsed, everything that was hanging on this frame collapsed too. Masha ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 14:08:31 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kenneth Goldsmith Subject: Whitney Details Comments: To: editor@ubu.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Many have asked for more details about the Whitney American Century 2 Sound Works. This is from Stephen Vitiello: From: stephen vitiello Subject: Re: Whitney Details Thanks for the note and all enthusiasm. There are two things happening. Yoko Ono's and Terry Fox's works will be on stairway landings. Michel Auder, Art by Telephone and Adrian Piper will be heard in or around one of the phone booths on the second floor. Julia Scher will be in the 2nd floor bathrooms. The rest will be played one or two times in the Film and Video Gallery during the week of January 11. The speakers will be re-set to ear level rather than overhead film scale. Lights will be dimmed and seats will be set-up to make it as conducive to listening as possible. There will not be any live performances that I know of. I proposed several but there was no money available. Annea Lockwood's piece will be a mini installation -- with recordings of the river heard on the main sound system and a second CD player with headphones, will play oral histories. A clock and map will be mounted on the wall which are specific to the work. Thursday evening with works by Kaprow and Amacher will be a multi channel presentation. We will set up multiple speakers and CD players. Bill Fontana's documentations will be accompanied by printed descriptions and histories. I will try to make printed material available as often as possible. Some of the works, such as the Cage piece and tapes from Charlotte Moorman have never been released. Acconci's Running Tape and Nauman's Record are more known of than heard. Nic Collins is making a new document of a classic work. Bob Bielecki is known for his assisting everybody (La Monte Young, P.Glass, L. Anderson., B.Viola) for the last 30 years but his incredibly beautiful recordings have almost never been spotlighted as "works." Thanks for the note on Melodie's name! Also, here is a list of the the pieces that I selected for the Whitney that will go up in September-January: Cough Piece by Yoko Ono, Happy Birthday Mr. President by Kristin Oppenheim, Voyage to the Center of the Phone Lines, part 2 by Michel Auder, The Labyrinth Scored for the Purrs of 11 Cats by Terry Fox, Seriation # 1 by Adrian Piper, Washroom Male, Washroom Female by Julia Sher, Art by Telephone from MCA Chicago, 1969 and featuring Artists: Siah Armajani, Arman, Richard Artschwager, John Baldessari, Iain Baxter, Mel Bochner, George Brecht, Jack Burnham, James Lee Byars, Robert H. Cumming, Francis Dallegret, Jan Dibbets, John Giorno, Robert Grosvenor, Hans Haacke, Dick Higgins, Davi Det Hompson, Robert Huot, Alain Jacquet, Ed Kienholz, Joseph Kosuth, Les Levine, Sol LeWitt, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, Claes Oldenburg, Dennis Oppenheim, Richard Serra, Robert Smithson, Guenther Uecker, Stan Van Der Beek, Bernar Vernet, Frank Lincoln Viner, Wolf Vostell, William Wegman, William T. Wiley. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 11:02:39 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: jen hofer Subject: UNAM strike Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello. Certainly there are other sources of information on news from Mexico, but for those of you who read Spanish, here is the address of La Jornada online, if you want a sense of what one of Mexico's largest daily papers has to say about the UNAM strike and/or any other topic. FYI, there's a fantastic literary/cultural supplement which comes out every Sunday, and is featured on the website. http://serpiente.dgsca.unam.mx/jornada/index.html Besos, Jen ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 13:36:01 PDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Steve Abbott, LeftWrite, Paul Mariah Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed The LeftWrite Conference was indeed 1981! It was attended by 250 people, a superb turnout given how deeply depressed the left was during the first year of the Reagan regime (I recall Michael Rosenthal of Modern Times telling me that sales of Mao, Marx and Lenin stopped virtually cold the previous November, a dropoff from which they've never recovered). The panel I participated on (with William Mandel and Diane DiPrima) was the largest group I'd ever spoken to at that time. In addition to my work in the prison movement, the Tenderloin and DSA, I have always been convinced that my appearance on that panel directly led to my being selected editor of Socialist Review five years later. Steve Abbott's work as editor and organizer both (they're very similar functions, terribly hard work and a great way to make enemies) were always good. Poetry Flash was an important part of the community when Steve directed it, and generally quite readable. When I got ready to turn over the Tenderloin Writers Workshop in '81, Steve was one of the people whom I approached about taking it over. He was too busy, he said, but he would have done a great job. People do forget, it's just the nature of time, and it never hurts to remind folks. I think we're all very lucky to have Kevin Killian functioning as his executor. In a very similar vein, I've always been quite amazed at how little attention the passing of Paul Mariah received a few years back. He was directly responsible for keeping Spicer's work visible for a good part of the ten years between Jack's death and the publication of the Collected Books. Between his magazine Manroot, the various reading series he ran and his own poetry, he was an absolutely visible presence in the poetry of SF in the 1960s -- possibly the most visible poet in the entire community. Paul was also the first person I knew who specifically articulated a gay poetics as such -- even before Judy Grahn and Pat Parker. Two folks whom I first met as a direct result of Paul's work (specifically running a reading series at the Albany public library) were David Melnick and David Bromige, two people whom I still count as strong influences and friends some 31 years later. Ron _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 19:42:19 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: A H Bramhall Subject: 4th World Reel (Rare Air Remake) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit our children have plausible cause. face it: factories fill with logic. lords of mischief dance into the sunset, beckoning the mischievous ladies. and vice versa, and more vice and more versa. it's just like that, systematically balanced to an eternal fare-thee-well. the children collect in puddles along the way, which sounds more purposeful than last week. last week was the nadir: wind-from- the-mountains kind of crap. you lose very often, sticking to principles. conventional principles explain nothing, and look out: the children are listening. the subject of who cares comes up: it's not in the air. when something is gone you make it up from what you can. shortchanging the marginal affects the centre. the program is the problem. the centralizing effect, say, of cooler weather or a chance to confer makes the radical edge strictly a cause. as in: shadowy nameplates exist on certain desks in the places where the corridors seem endless. I can't just say I LoVe [sic] You, and neither can you. the boundaries have frozen. the lords and ladies of mischief have seen the babies making sense. as an occupation for cleverly ill-concealed success. the toast of the town brought to prominence by what's this moment worth. tomorrow will have to say three things. the list of what those three things should be lay on a desk somewhere in a room off a dark corridor. the child = cause thing is probable, since meaning is a vacation spot where weather's fine and golf's my handicap. no vacancies needed, we're all presidents in line for the groove thing. hello sturdy documents of fitting in, hello joining the little things together, hello to progress and its evil twin. the last best grungy hope hampers the previous ones. the bass player angers at the loss of recognition, amps blown with the last dying power, and now, now: Greenland looks like smoke on most maps. principles mean time to talk. principles mean open the floodgates. principles mean miners have their system. me and you, illogically twinned by an overbearing smirk, rise to the sensational new day. it'll be Friday this time, but don't give up the ship. shortages will always be available, mapping a structure wherein concern can be marginalized into utility for the same old union. learn to hate, people, learn to hate people, learn to hate. the new element will supersede the old. --ahb, who hates hard and feels groovy ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 19:55:37 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Patrick F. Durgin" Subject: God Loves Fags Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" forwarding this from another list -- Phelps has got his work cut out for him -- pray to the rev you've come here in time to see this: www.godhatesfags.com Patrick F. Durgin k e n n i n g a newsletter of contemporary poetry http://www.avalon.net/~kenning 418 Brown St. #10, Iowa City, IA 52245, USA ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 12:56:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: Re: God Loves Fags MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit F.Y.I. Patrick F. Durgin's post refers to an much-deserved hack of Benjamin Phelps' revolting "god hates fags" web site; you may remember seeing Phelps and his followers in the nat'l news when they showed up outside Matthew Shepard's funeral. Kris Haight, operator of the pro-queer , was given control of the domain by an anonymous source, and used the opportunity to detourn Phelps' page by substituting his own, similarly designed site. The domain has since been more or less returned to Phelps' control, though an intermediary page remains. It's nice to see hackers can still do the right thing. From the God Loves Fags site: "What a strange ride it has been. We were gifted with ownership of Phelps's domain late Wednesday, and here we sit, 72 hours later having given it back. While many of you don't understand why the domain had to go back to Phelps, we felt it was in the best interest of ourselves, our service provider, our provider's uplink as well as the gay rights movement everywhere to give it back. Read our formal statement here." for further information: God Loves Fags 2600: The Hacker Quarterly Memorial site for Matthew Shepard (one of many) Chris % Christopher W. Alexander % poetics list moderator ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 02:08:27 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lynn Miller Subject: Class Talk/Part Two MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable 3/27[95]. 9:00 a.m. On the steps of the NYC public library. But I don't want to take Steve=20 Abbott away or outside the grouping it appears among in the Spicer ACTS, a=20 grouping that at the time the issue arrived in the mail on a farm in Iowa=20 sometime in late 87 reverberated for its reader as a document recording in=20 print pieces of a conversation he had overheard, attending a grouping which=20 in the ACTS inflects a hybridization of practices in miscellaneous or=20 occasional forms--the letter (real or imaginary), archive documents, photos,=20 collage and other graphics, all of which exert a certain pressure on the=20 names that pronounce the phenonemon of the single author--almost as if the=20 Spicer ACTS was a reconstructed tavern presided over by Jack's ghost--the=20 noise is so loud. It's the noise at the corner of Fifth Ave. and 40th St.=20 waiting for the library to open, the anticipation of a quiet table in a quie= t=20 room already implicated in a horizon of diminished expectations--a recorded=20 message informed me this morning the library was open from 9 to 9 only to=20 arrive to find the hours reduced to 10 to 6. I woke up at 5:00 in a room on=20 the 10th floor overlooking Western Ave. at the corner of 102nd St. thinking=20 about the Dickinson/Maher association, Aife's mentioning the page of writing=20 with the servant's hand on the one side and the poet's on the other,=20 wondering whether it isn't Maher 'speaking' in the Master letters, thinking=20 of that as a way to read the "Conversations,"--as all but written in a=20 servant's hand on a page that belongs to the Poet--that the one might attach=20 to the other in such a fragile bond--and how the name Jack Spicer might one=20 day accrue around it the kind of authority or designation--when it is finall= y=20 a brandname for a package---identifiable at a distance--when the act of=20 reading the work--when the work is no longer a threat in its=20 anti-institutional--when its pronounced hositility to all institutional form= s=20 is finally brought in and included as part of the Academy's incorporative=20 machinery--and the moment when the name Jack Spicer begins to be separated=20 from its locality--its union local--one of the ironies of any posthumous=20 existence, especially since only in Dickinson is there as severe a Puritan=20 or--in Spicer's case--Calvinist--pride in the refusal of the Book as a form=20 of property. Michael Davidson called this Spicer's "politics," . . . "one=20 based on anarchist principles of private refusal and mutual aid." How could=20 any other form of radicalism appear in North American poetry in the years=20 immediately following the Second War. That they appeared at all is in itsel= f=20 remarkable, considering Duncan's disavowal, or refusal, couched in the voice=20 of judgment, of Lili's Trotskyist politics at the beginning of the HD Book. =20 Something of their necessity for Spicer comes through in Blaser's account,=20 i.e. "He never forgave his mother for forcing his father to settle down, on=20 account, of course, of his own birth . . . Somehow never to forgive one's=20 birth." How can I talk about what's not there? More than an absence, thoug= h=20 there are huge gaps between the sentences clamped together as they are into=20 the (forced) semblance of a sequence. Steve's "Now this poem / in which one=20 thing follows another" feels more like what the poet who wrote it thought he=20 was doing--the guilt coming into the writing about the inadequacy of that=20 writing--that it isn't smart enough--that it doesn't have what real good=20 poems have--whatever that is. Somewhere in Spicer a page begins with "Real=20 bad poems." One of these comments that float in from who knows where and=20 what is it doing there coming through, that it does comet through,=20 representing one of those openings for every poet who comes to writing with=20 severe impediments--whatever those impediments are--there are so many--like=20 the impediments for a migrant worker learning a new language and job skill. =20 Jack: "Nobody's stranger than the stranger coming to dinner. He can imitat= e=20 anything or anybody." Steve: "Don't speak to me. I don't want to hear=20 again how we got to be here." Tom Beckett's poem follows Steve's in the=20 Spicer ACTS: "Where we are is in a sentence." Jack: "Where we are this is=20 idiocy. Where we are a block of solid glass blocks us from all we have=20 dreamed of. But this place is not where we are to meet them." How can I talk about what's not there? What's there is carefully troped out=20 of Spicer, and that's not what I wanted to be there. There's the question o= f=20 how the Conversations were made, the great care taken in its putting=20 together. "A machine to trap ghosts with." But that's not it either. The=20 timing--lack of speed, velocity, what feels instead like an excruciating=20 slowness as though one were learning to write with great pain and difficulty= .=20 Abbott presses into Spicer's work with such will, force, insistence--almost=20 methodical--that the Other winds up coming out through the back side of the=20 page. Steve: "And did anyone arrive at the other side?" What is the other=20 side of the books authored by Jack Spicer? Steve's "Don't speak to me" migh= t=20 be heard as the protest of someone at the threshold of the confidence that i= t=20 takes to write poetry. Ron's quote from the Vancouver lecture, "The more yo= u=20 know, the more language you know . . . the more building blocks the Martians=20 have to play with." What if the building blocks are few? What if the Alien= s=20 don't arrive? The Outside in Steve's poem is Jack's books read through a=20 radically other space--domestic economy--though this still doesn't get at=20 what's not there. Translation. Is class a language? Jack: "You are stuck=20 with language, and you are stuck with words, and you are stuck with the=20 things that you know." When you come from the working class, what do you=20 know? Silliman: "Spicer's insistence on the instrumental function of=20 language." Rope/Words. Jack: "They are what we hold on with, nothing else= .=20 They are as valuable in themselves as rope with nothing to be tied to." =20 Steve: "At the end of our rope / we could have been anything." There's thi= s=20 beginning at an opening--free play--expanding choices--"AND JUST POSSIBLY TH= E=20 SMALLNESS OF HIS OWN VOCABULARY" (Silliman on Spicer). All that is missing. =20 All that is missing are the authors. "Pure language is to Benjamin what th= e=20 Martians are to Spicer." Abbott: "I want to stretch my feelings / out like=20 one clean note of music, endlessly. / One long note to be a bridge / for=20 someone." Blaser: "But given our social and political condition--that of=20 the entire twentieth century, but particularly of the Spicer period and=20 continuing--the disarray of our knowledge, the acknowledged difficulty of ou= r=20 love life, it is a 'language which has no property.'" (In the photograph,=20 turning to Ron): "This is already in my notes before I heard you with that=20 business of no property. The pure word, this notion of pure word attaches t= o=20 a language that has no property. This is not the English misreading of=20 Mallarme=04=04=04=04=03=B4 at all, and we must be careful of it (in fact, Ma= llarme=B4 is=20 not at all found in an English reading of him. And so without property his=20 beloved language[.]" Jack: "his name . . . (if it was his name)." Steve: =20 "Bent and shaped by necessity." There is an epistemological Spicer. "There is no Pacific Ocean." Ron's=20 concentration on the fragility of naming moves me in response down another=20 reading of Jack's last page marching "Toward / A necessity which is not love=20 but is a name." What is its name? It can't be said that it has--or once=20 had--"gaining and losing something with each transformation." The naming of=20 Trotsky--an opening which makes possible the recuperation of the Left=20 Opposition in the U.S. which emerged at the end of the 1920s in immediate=20 response to the collapse of the October Revolution. The vitality and=20 relevance of this tradition next to invisible in the cultural sphere has bee= n=20 obscured by the Zukofsky/Oppen orientation toward American Stalinism. What=20 is it's name? "The one nobody listens to is speaking. He makes mistakes. =20 Impossible to improve." "We have come on to the stage stammering." =20 "Communsm." "Humiliating in its disguises. Tougher than anything." The=20 last words at the end of the Spicer ACTS are Robin's: "And I think it's a=20 very important passage, to know what kind of text we're taken back to. It i= s=20 further important to know that the two out of all these people that I admire=20 most, Derrida and Foucault, make themselves amazingly immortal. We=20 absolutely can't do what they want us to do after they die. Derrida is stil= l=20 alive so we're safe for awhile [laughter]. Anyway, thank you very much." I= n=20 the spirit of that, here is the dedication to the "Spectres of Marx" in a=20 different context, i.e, how to read through the negative imprint of=20 domination, which involves an articulation of "proletarian" as not (only) a=20 content--timidity, fragility, subordination--lines painfully clawed=20 out--argues for a renewed engagement within a larger social context. "One name for another, a part for the whole: the historic violence of=20 Apartheid can always be treated as a metonymy. In its past as well as in it= s=20 present. by diverse paths (condensation, displacement, expression, or=20 representation), one can always decipher through its singularity so many=20 other kinds of violence going on in the world. At once part, cause, effect,=20 example, what is happening there translates what takes place here, always=20 here, wherever one is and wherever one looks, closest to home. Infinite=20 responsibility, therefore, no rest allowed for any form of good conscience. =20 But one should never speak of the assassination of a man as a figure, not=20 even an exemplary figure in the logic of an emblem, a rhetoric of the flag o= r=20 of martyrdom. A man's life, as unique as his death, will always be more tha= n=20 a paradigm and something other than a symbol. And this is precisely what a=20 proper name should always name. And yet. And yet, keeping this in mind and=20 having recourse to a common noun, I recall that is as a communist as such, a=20 communist as communist, whom a Polish emigrant and his accomplices, all the=20 assassins of Chris Hani, put to death a few days ago, April 10th. The=20 assassins themselves proclaimed that they were out to get a communist. They=20 were trying to interrupt negotiations and sabatoge an ongoing=20 democratization. This popular hero of the resistance against Apartheid=20 became dangerous and suddenly intolerable, it seems, at the moment in which,=20 having to decided to devote himself once again to a minority Communist Party=20 riddled with contradictions, he gave up important responsibilities in the AN= C=20 and perhaps any official political or even governmental role he might one da= y=20 have held in a country freed of Apartheid. Allow me to salute the memory of Chris Hani and to dedicate this lecture to=20 him." Allow me to salute the memory of Steve Abbott, and to dedicate Proletariaria=20 to him. =20 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 09:57:25 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: Incorrect or incomplete address field found and ignored. From: "Carol L. Hamshaw" Subject: TELEPOETICS AT THE BEACH: Special Labour Day Event! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------2A258C5B88D9D36520382CE3" --------------2A258C5B88D9D36520382CE3 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Note change in time and location from last press release. > > FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE > DATE: September 6, 1999TIME: 7pm PST > PLACE:West Spanish Banks Beach (near the concession stand) > The Edgewise ElectroLit Centre > PRESENTS > TELEPOETICS AT THE BEACH > LABOUR DAY PICNIC AND LONE STAR LINK-UP > > WITH SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS. > > Featuring improv poetry ensemble Verbomotorhead, Carmen > Rodriguez and Susan Mullen, from Vancouver; and > poetry-percussion performance artist, Mim Sharlack, > Trinidad Sanchez, and more - from San Antonio, Texas. > On Monday, September 6 join us for our end of summer > picnic bash. The poetry reading starts at 7pm but come > down early to enjoy roving musicians and the sunset. Bring > your own food, blankies, chairs and beverages—the > entertainment is on us. > Verbomotorhead (Alex Ferguson, Kedrick James, Mark > Plimley, and Doni Scob) is an oral poetry performance > group that does improv poetry and polyvocal acapella > arrangements. > Susan Mullen (S.R.-H) has been writing poetry since 1964 > and lives here in Vancouver where she is host of the open > mike series "Tales of Ordinary Madness" and is > co-organizer of the new Pan Poetics reading series at the > Helen Pitt Gallery. > The Edgewise ElectroLit Centre uses digital videophones to > exchange poetry between Vancouver and other locales. > Always facing the challenge of the marriage between art > and technology, this is the first outdoor link we’ve done. > > > > "This linkup is extremely ambitious for two reasons—new > partner and because we're doing it outside. But like > Symphony of Fire, we’re using the night sky for a > backdrop." (President of EEC, Heather Haley). > > > The Edgewise ElectroLit Centre is a nonprofit society > whose mandate is to exploit communications technology to > widen the audience of Canadian poetry and to give poets, > multi-media artists and youth the opportunity to use, > learn, and create with this technology. Videoconferencing > and online publishing are the major technologies that we > work with. Our electronic magazine can be viewed and heard > at www.edgewisecafe.org>. Poets featured with audio > include Adeena Karasick, Wayde Compton, bill bissett and > Sheri-D Wilson. We also publish videopoems and are hosting > Canada’s first Videopoem Festival at Video In Studios this > fall. > > For more information, please call Carol L. Hamshaw, > Administrator, at 904-9362/984-1712. -- Carol L. Hamshaw Administrator Edgewise ElectroLit Centre http://www.edgewisecafe.org --------------2A258C5B88D9D36520382CE3 Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Note change in time and location from last press release.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DATE: September 6, 1999TIME: 7pm PST
PLACE:West Spanish Banks Beach (near the concession stand) The Edgewise ElectroLit Centre
PRESENTS
TELEPOETICS AT THE BEACH
LABOUR DAY PICNIC AND LONE STAR LINK-UP
WITH SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS.

Featuring improv poetry ensemble Verbomotorhead, Carmen Rodriguez and Susan Mullen, from Vancouver; and poetry-percussion performance artist, Mim Sharlack, Trinidad Sanchez, and more - from San Antonio, Texas.
On Monday, September 6 join us for our end of summer picnic bash. The poetry reading starts at 7pm but come down early to enjoy roving musicians and the sunset. Bring your own food, blankies, chairs and beverages—the entertainment is on us.
Verbomotorhead (Alex Ferguson, Kedrick James, Mark Plimley, and Doni Scob) is an oral poetry performance group that does improv poetry and polyvocal acapella arrangements.
Susan Mullen (S.R.-H) has been writing poetry since 1964 and lives here in Vancouver where she is host of the open mike series "Tales of Ordinary Madness" and is co-organizer of the new Pan Poetics reading series at the Helen Pitt Gallery.
The Edgewise ElectroLit Centre uses digital videophones to exchange poetry between Vancouver and other locales. Always facing the challenge of the marriage between art and technology, this is the first outdoor link we’ve done.

"This linkup is extremely ambitious for two reasons—new partner and because we're doing it outside. But like Symphony of Fire, we’re using the night sky for a backdrop." (President of EEC, Heather Haley).

The Edgewise ElectroLit Centre is a nonprofit society whose mandate is to exploit communications technology to widen the audience of Canadian poetry and to give poets, multi-media artists and youth the opportunity to use, learn, and create with this technology. Videoconferencing and online publishing are the major technologies that we work with. Our electronic magazine can be viewed and heard at www.edgewisecafe.org>. Poets featured with audio include Adeena Karasick, Wayde Compton, bill bissett and Sheri-D Wilson. We also publish videopoems and are hosting Canada’s first Videopoem Festival at Video In Studios this fall.
For more information, please call Carol L. Hamshaw, Administrator, at 904-9362/984-1712.

--
Carol L. Hamshaw
Administrator
Edgewise ElectroLit Centre
http://www.edgewisecafe.org
--------------2A258C5B88D9D36520382CE3-- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 10:16:37 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: A H Bramhall Subject: the Well-Adjusted Poets Club MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit by the way, the package arrived today and it was grandissimo. the feral of your out of town met my quickstep and quagmire with hey the bagpipes still three days till you can return to your nest back action found your port. so warmly, how are you the moon in the way of all progress sought for questioning concerning that latest case? I had to tell the fragments from the small discretes when oh my God there was a story about Bing Sung screwing up the state's account to the tune of millions and his job, Delaware River and so forth. I mentioned the bagpipes fret motor of that squeezed out diatribe machinist theory portent that you arrived at recently. squint when the eclipse is your interest, do that for me. I heard underground reactions are the rule, party politics an issue. only, strangely, no underground exists: couldn't pay the set up fee. so you must uptown work it out. I will align locally but with spirit. castles fraught with castle imagery and the visceral glee of adjust the tempo dance tune. my God, loneliness is such a local function, the world's too big for that! I 'd hate to think poets were lonely. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 11:47:24 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nuyopoman@AOL.COM Subject: National Slams http://poetry.about.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jason Pettus has written a terrific letter about the recently completed National Poetry Slam -- check out http://poetry.about.com. With Juliette Torrez's retiring "Channels," the poetry.About.com site is searching for new Newsletter writers/editors. Holman's idea of "Curriculum for the Soul" is still on tap -- and could become the base for a new poetry.About approach. Ideas, writings, energy welcome. Bob Holman nuyopoman@aol.com Margy Snyder poetry.guide@about.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 08:56:15 PDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Charles Macaulay Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Charles Macaulay was the partner of the late LA poet and editor Leland Hickman -- they were both wonderful people. Ron Charles Macaulay, an actor and director prominent in theater but best remembered for his role as the hapless prosecutor facing the perpetually successful defense attorney played by the late Raymond Burr in a number of ``Perry Mason'' movies, died in Sonoma County of cancer last Friday at the age of 72. Mr. Macaulay, a close friend of Burr's and an administrator of his multimillion-dollar estate, had been a partner and resident of the Raymond Burr Vineyards in Sonoma County. William Talman played the frustrated District Attorney Hamilton Burger in the original 1957-65 ``Perry Mason'' television series. But Mr. Macaulay assumed the role for a group of TV movies in the 1980s and early '90s after starting as the judge in ``Perry Mason Returns'' in 1985. Mr. Macaulay appeared in about 200 television shows, including episodes of ``I Spy,'' ``Star Trek,'' ``The Wild, Wild West,'' ``Mission: Impossible,'' ``Gunsmoke,'' ``Baa Baa Black Sheep,'' ``Columbo'' and the soap opera ``Days of Our Lives.'' He also acted in a couple of dozen feature films. Mr. Macaulay was also a respected stage actor. Born and raised in Kentucky, he was trained at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. Upon graduation, he won the First Judges Medal and received notes of congratulation on his performance in ``The Heiress'' from the British actors John Mills and John Gielgud. Mr. Macaulay made his New York debut in 1952 in Somerset Maugham's ``The Sacred Flame'' and for a number of years worked on the East Coast, performing in seven Broadway plays, six off-Broadway productions and more than 70 live television programs, including ``Armstrong Circle Theater'' and ``Studio One.'' He also played in various summer stock companies and acted in the Barter Theater opposite Dame Judith Anderson. Among the plays in which he appeared were ``The Winslow Boy,'' ``Bell, Book and Candle,'' ``Man and Superman'' and ``The Dark Is Light Enough.'' He also performed Shakespeare and played the title role in ``Macbeth'' and Benedick in ``Much Ado about Nothing'' at the Old Globe Theater in San Diego. Mr. Macaulay taught at the University of Southern California School of Theater from 1986 to 1992. _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 13:30:56 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: male on the board MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII = male on the board can a male speak english? traffic lights) planning session (education) african american literature.) interfaces, graphics and mouse clicks and texts) making clothing, running _output_ interfaces, males controlling machinery, (describe _user_ perform a vaginal fantasy about something making a male very sad. (describe of a male on the board. what would you do with a robot child. a robot house. draw the parts of a male on the board. draw a picture about bits and bytes and going on and off. work on a project designing the screen. pretend that the male wrote the vaginal fantasy. perform a vaginal fantasy flying back out through the screen. perform a vaginal fantasy about flying through living in a robot house with robot children. then perform a vaginal fanta- sy about a picture of a male you like and bring it perform a vaginal fan- tasy about perform a vaginal fantasy about the very worst thing a male could find is in love with its owner. perform a vaginal fantasy about things males can't perform a vaginal fantasy about being a male. perform a vaginal fantasy about a male who robots. perform a vaginal fantasy about a subject a male can't be used for. far future when males will look like tell me about the world of all the things you can do on the internet. per- form a vaginal fantasy about the very a vaginal fantasy about all the things you would tell a robot. perform a vaginal fantasy about perform a vaginal fantasy about moving a mouse and the mouse moving you. perform drawing> vaginal questions and exercises: would you like to have a robot child? Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: miekal and Organization: Awkword Ubutronics Subject: segue to the non-virutal MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [dreamtime] new online: grotto / unglaciated utopia Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 11:18:15 -0600 From: miekal and Reply-To: dreamtime@onelist.com Organization: Awkword Ubutronics To: dreamtime@onelist.com From: miekal and After months of piddling around, the website for the Driftless Grotto of West Lima is now on the air. check it out when you get a chance & if anyone has additions, corrections, photos, ideas & designs, or a sum of money to help buy that corner lot, get back to me. (The movie requires Flash plug-in.) http://net22.com/dreamtime/grotto/index.html Also John Brinker's account of his 5 months at Dreamtime is up. This was htmled by Ben Meyers like a 100 years ago & am just now getting it up. John wrote this as his final project for Hampshire College. http://net22.com/dreamtime/unglaciated_utopia/unglaciated.html Miekal ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 15:56:54 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: A H Bramhall Subject: Mine The Community MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit registered in the maximum and never close to servile, the miners strew the path of Modern Poetry with every pleasing new gimmick they can disinter. they insist on the value of community within the adjudicating structure that represents (always represents) the latest formality, keyed as that formality is to strictures of time space and body odour. they bring a broad-based whimsy to their every action: initiating Who Do You Love sequences with a deftness to carry mountains. or how about the Visions of Vocabulary rooting each new trouble in a prime, central Caring. there are no checkered careers anymore, nor careers, for that matter, just the latest troopers surging forward with the next thing to last forever, somewhere in the curve up ahead, as if forever weren't filling up fast. Who Do You Love? the miners demand, banging their tools to Bo Diddley's beat. and they mean eros love and they mean happen to like: paramours and auteurs, frescos and frameworks, peace eye and bookstore. majestic would be the label, tho in the private, mining community sense of: back to work. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 04:26:38 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Jullich Subject: oh my god: cut-ups / "homosexualization of the New Yorkavant-garde" -Reply Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain >>> R M Daley 08/13/99 04:45pm >>> >>>1. please see sedgwick's intro to Novel Gazing, puclished Duke Press 1997 for a primer on "queer theory" which departs ferociously from, says a thousand goodbyes to, freud and his cronies whose arrested sexual (theory) development foisted repression on any and everything not deemed 'natural' or 'biological' Is that what Sedgwick is saying? She uses the word "natural" only once, about the pleasure/reality principles, and for that, she places it in (ironic?) scare quotes: "This leaves pleasure-seeking as an always . . . underground wellspring of supposedly 'natural' motive" (p. 16). As far as "his cronies", what about the Melanie Klein Sedgwick takes half her title from ("Reparative") and champions? I don't know if I would call it a "primer"; to me, it seems a rather fine hermeneutical point she's sifting. And neither Sedgwick nor queer theory are that proscriptive: she repeatedly advocates a kind of scholarly libertinism ("turns these essays take away from existing accounts of how 'one' ~should~ read, and back toward a . . . fecund question of how one ~does~", p. 2; "for someone to have an unmystified, angry view of . . . systemic oppressions does not . . . enjoin on that person any specific train of epistemological or narrative consequences", p. 4). Yet, the queer theory people I personally knew in 1997 took considerable umbrage at Sedgwick's dictating to the community, labelling them. There are good reasons to take exception with her "Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading". Sedgwick seems to be taking her psychoanalysis menu-style, picking and choosing which Freudianisms she'll keep and which throw out. Even if, as you say, she's expurgating repression (repressing repression), the whole essay is, of course, about nothing less Freudian than--- paranoia! That's like saying no USA, but keeping Washington, D.C. Which still doesn't keep Kathryn Bond Stockton and Anne Chandler, to name only two of the essayists in ~Novel Gazing,~ from going right ahead and using their fill of Freud for their queer theory (50-51, 224n). All the same, hasn't Sedgwick's new and improved model 1999 ~Dialogue on Love~ out-trumped her own 1997 "Paranoid Reading . . ." into obsolescence, as far as repression goes? 1997: she may have had motives for rhetoric against queer theory's (other writers') reliance on psychoanalysis and repression,--- but when, 1999, it came to her memoirs and 'fessing up as to how she actually spent those years, she has no bones about publishing transcripts (cut-ups!) from psychotherapy sessions where she ~paid~ to unveil her own personal repressions. Doesn't that seem like double standards, prohibitive queer theory (no repression) versus indulgent private praxis (yes repression)? Regardless, when I added "I mean this as queer theory, . . . which is always ~speculative"~ as the last sentence to my post (Sedgwick wrote: "there are important phenomenological and theoretical tasks that can be accomplished only through local theories and nonce taxonomies; the . . . mechanisms of their relation to stronger theories remains the matter of art and ~speculative~ thought", p. 23), maybe you're right and it's not queer theory; I shouldn't have blushed: I tossed that in as apologetics only because I was afraid someone might think what I wrote was "anti-gay." --- I wrote, "it's commutative, not ~additive",~ and Sedgwick wrote, "The desire of a reparative impulse . . . is ~additive~ and accretive" (p. 27): the two differentiations don't really seem that far apart to me. But even if I am mistaken, she's already gotten there ahead of us: "'the importance of 'mistakes' in queer reading and writing . . . has a lot to do with loosening the traumatic, inevitable-seeming connection between mistakes and humiliation. . . . (A) lot of queer energy, later on, goes into . . . practices aimed at taking the terror out of error, at making the making of mistakes sexy, creative, even cognitively powerful" (p. 25). Maria Damon, for one, seems to agree about Earl Jackson that a good connection between "the homosexualization of the New York avant-garde" and cut-ups can at least be argued. Are you saying there is no connection? >>>3. not everyone has to have babies - some women don't have babies - some women who fuck with men don't have babies - some women who fuck with women don't have babies - some women who fuck men have babies and then give them away - . . . Gertrude Stein couldn't have said it better. (I did identify "the childless homosexual" as a fallacy.) True, all exhaustively true. But that's empiricism. I was speaking hypothetically. JJ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 17:19:22 -0500 Reply-To: jlm8047@usl.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jerry McGuire Organization: USL Subject: deep south writers conference schedule and registration Comments: To: Andi Matherne , Clara Connell , Cathy Bishop , Dedria Givens , contemporary poetry list , charles bernstein , Amitava Kumar , Cheryl Torsney , dayne allan sherman , Charles Hunt , beverly vidrine , Allen David Barry , Darrell Curtis , dominique ryon , Dodie R Meeks , Anne Barrows , doris meriwether , Delane Tew , Alan Cockrell <73761.1143@compuserve.com>, David Kuhne , Chuck Thompson , David Duggar , "David J. LeMaster" , Cynthia Harper <5SatLib-SanAntonio@ca5.uscourts.gov>, David Holcomb , Chere' Coen , "Blanche A. Bell" , Brian Andrew Laird , Bev Marshall , Becky Hepinstall , "D.J. Shaw" , Donya Dickerson , Boyd Girouard , Diane M Farrington , Andrew Smiley , christine watt , "DWooley111@aol.com" , Camille Goodison , Clayton Delery , DONALD JACOBSON , Deborah L Siegel , Brenda Cary , Alan Davis , deborah novak , Brian O'Donnell , Delores Merrill , Ann Jennings , angie davidson , Cedelas Hall , Bill Lavender , april greer , Deborah Phelps , Brent Royster , gail tayko , John Ferstel , Gretchen King , elysabeth young , Fox Willard , John Fiero , Jeff Goldstein , Jonathan Barron , janet bowdan , George Elliott Clarke , Joel Kuszai , Jeff Lodge , Jarita Davis <105366.2756@compuserve.com>, jean-marc , john august wood , geetha ramanathan , Hank Lazer , Eliza Miller , eric mcneil , Glynnauth , Joy Graham , "Jeanine B. Cook" , "Edelma D. Huntley" , "Emily W. McAllister" , Judith Meriwether , Julie Hebert , Jerry Goad , "Joyce S. Brown" , "John P. Doucet" , joe andriano , "jberry@dps.state.la.us" , judith mcneely , Janet McCann , Geri Taran , "JGray46412@aol.com" , jeff dear , "harry d. stewart" , Joe Carlisle , Jim White , "J. Paulette Forshey" , jack bedell , Luis Urrea , Karen Ford , LWilson213 , Kevin Murphy , MANNY SELVIN , Kathy Ptacek , kevin johnson , marcia gaudet , Marie Plasse , Mark Nowak , Mary Cappello , Mary Cotton , Megan Farrell , Michael and Charisse Floyd , Michael Mandel , miki nilan , molly cole , murray schwartz , Nancy Richard , Mary Hillier Sewell , louisiana , Libby Nehrbass , mary tutwiler , Marcella Durand , L V Sadler , Larry Anderson , Norman German , Karleen Wooley , michael hansen , "M. Davis" , Marvin Douglass , "lynn a. powers" , mike schultz , Karen Meinardus , Nancy Dawn Van Beest , Michelle Dufour , McAdoo Greer , M Butz , Louis Gallo , lynne castille , Martha Metrailer , Mary Alice Cook , Linda M Schopper , Mary Kay McAllister , Kevin Murphy , "Lisa R. Davis" , laura taylor , lila walker , MARSHA BRYANT , Peter Ganick , Richard Caccavale , Robin and Charles Weber , Robley Hood , Rosalind Foley , Sean McFadden , Shawn Moyer , Staci Swedeen , Stanley Blair , Stephen Doiron , Steve Wilson , TABORWARRN , Tim Smith , Timothy Materer , Paige DeShong , Pamela Kirk Prentice , Patty Ryan , paul maltby , rlehan , Steve Barancik , Randy Prunty , Rogan Stearns , "Sean H. O'Leary" , Sara McAulay , Robert Brophy , Patricia Burchfield , Staci Bleecker , rita hiller , Stacey Bowden , Suzanne Mark , ralph stephens , Tatiana Stoumen , Todd Nettleton , Ruth Rakestraw , Robin Kemp , Patrice Melnick , Sam Broussard , Pat McFerren , Sara Wallace , Sandy Labry , Richard Crews , susan middaugh , Rhonda Blanchard , "Tammy D. Harvey" , Tana Bradley , Walt McDonald , Wendell Mayo , William Ryan , William Sylvester , Zach Smith , William Pitt Root and Pamela Uschuk , Writers' Forum , "Whitten, Phyllis" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit ANNOUNCING THE THIRTY-NINTH ANNUAL FALL DEEP SOUTH WRITERS CONFERENCE CREATIVE IMAGINATION AND "THE LOCAL" SEPTEMBER 23-26, 1999 It is our pleasure to announce the 39th Annual Deep South Writers Conference, which will take place from September 23rd to September 26th, 1999, on the University of Southwestern Louisiana campus in Lafayette. This year the conference will explore a theme that we feel must interest every writer--the part played by the "local" in the things we write. Whatever the "local" means to you--connections to your family, your town or region, the feeling you get from your native bayous, plains, deserts, mountains, seascapes, or urban complexity, your racial, national, or ethnic identifications, or the bonds that tie you to a group of people on the basis of gender, age, writerly style, or some other shared set of values or interests--it has enriched writers throughout the world for as long as poems have been recited and stories told. The fact that the local feels specially precarious now--that many contemporary writers feel rootless and groundless--just intensifies the significance of the local in what we do, and makes it even more important that we devote this Deep South Writers Conference to understanding it better. We’ve felt one effect of this theme already--this year’s group of visiting artists have expressed tremendous interest in these ideas, and consequently we’re looking forward to the liveliest program in years. Here are some of the things we’ve got planned: • an opening-night program featuring performances, presentations, and discussions by two of Louisiana’s finest songwriters, Sam Broussard and David Egan • readings and workshops by visiting writers Mary Cappello, Toi Derricotte, Jordon Pecile, and Virgil Suarez, and by USL’s brilliant young star, George Clark • a Sunday morning reading and discussion with USL Writer-in-Residence Ernest Gaines • a "Poetry Crawl" around some of the most interesting venues in the lively Lafayette arts community • a special workshop in teaching creative writing by Sandy Lyne of the Inner Writer Program, emphasizing "Spirit of Place" • panels relating the local to creative writing and writing pedagogy • a panel of editors discussing what the local means in their publications OUR FEATURED WRITERS MARY CAPPELLO, poet and associate professor of English at the University of Rhode Island, is the author of Night Bloom, a critically acclaimed memoir that focuses on her coming of age in the working class suburbs of Philadelphia. Published in 1998, Night Bloom proves Cappello’s uncanny talent to reanimate the past with a fierce and honest pen. She reconstructs the rough road of her Italian-American family’s experiences in the United States, ranging from her immigrant forbears to the present-day events of her own life. In a New York Times review, Cappello’s poetic style is heralded for its seamless transitions between past and present: "[Her] writing shines and like the flowers she cherishes, offers fleeting glimpses of beauty". Cappello’s poetry has appeared in Philomel, Full Moon, The Painted Bride Quarterly, The Paterson Literary Review and The American Poetry Review. Her recent readings include the University of Rochester (New York) where she headlined for the Plutzik Series. GEORGE MAKANA CLARK was brought up in Zimbabwe, of British and Xhosa descent. He served in both the South African Defense Force and the United States Army. He has lived and worked in more than thirty nations on four continents as a soldier, musician, journalist, professor, and bush guide. He received a Ph.D. in Creative Writing from Florida State University as a Kingsbury Fellow. Clark’s work has appeared in Zoetrope: All Story, Glimmer Train, The Southern Review, The Massachusetts Review, Black Warrior Review, Georgetown Review, Appalachee Quarterly, and elsewhere. Two of his short stories were selected for inclusion in "The 100 Distinguished Stories" section in The Best American Short Stories of 1998, and one received an honorable mention in The O’Henry Awards: 1998. Francis Ford Coppola has purchased two options on Clark’s fiction. His collection of short stories, The Small Bees’ Honey, was published in 1998 by White Pine Press. Clark currently teaches fiction writing at the University of Southwestern Louisiana. He lives in Lafayette with his wife, daughter, two dogs, two cats, and an extended family of peach-faced and seafoam love birds. TOI DERRICOTTE is the winner of the Folger Shakespeare Library Poetry Book Award, the Lucille Medwick Memorial Award, a Pushcart Prize, and the Distinguished Pioneering of the Arts Award from the United Black Artists, as well as two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. Born in Detroit, she received her BA from Wayne State University, spent several years teaching mentally retarded and psychologically disturbed children in the Detroit public schools, and then moved to New York and received her masters degree in Literature and Creative Writing from NYU. For nearly twenty years she worked as a master teacher in the highly esteemed New Jersey Poets-in-the-Schools Program. Derricotte has published four books of poetry, Tender, Captivity, Natural Birth, and The Empress of the Death House, and has also published widely in award-winning journals such as American Poetry Review, Callaloo, The Iowa Review, and Ploughshares. Her lyrical, powerful poems often focus on racial tensions and violence in urban America. She describes her recently published memoir, The Black Notebooks: An Interior Journey, as an attempt to tell the truth about racial passing: "All my life I have passed invisibly into the white world. . . . I never told anyone I was white. I just didn’t tell them I was black. . . . To show myself in this unfavorable light is to say, ‘Let’s talk about the things that racism makes us do. Let’s talk about the imperfect choices it drives us to.’" Derricotte has taught creative writing at Old Dominion, George Mason, and the University of Pittsburgh. She is currently Visiting Professor of English at Xavier University. JORDON PECILE, winner of the Governor Wilbur Cross Award for Outstanding Work in the Humanities for 1998, has been the head of English at the U. S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut for ten years. His short stories about growing up as an Italian American in the coal mining region of northeastern Pennsylvania have been published in the Atlantic and other magazines, and he is collecting them into a book, Obsequious Sorrows, Unmanly Griefs. For PBS’s American Masters Series, he has written a documentary, "The Eye of Memory," about the rich, full life of Katherine Anne Porter, who as a young woman lived in Lafayette. His most recent work for television, "Eugene O'Neill's New London," won the Bronze Award in the 17th Telly Awards, 1996, and is shown regularly on Connecticut Public Television. He has been script consultant and literary advisor for television films about Eugene O'Neill and for the acclaimed series, "The American Short Story on Film." His work for radio includes the 90-minute program, "Wallace Stevens: Poet with the Blue Guitar," which won First Prize for Creative Use of the Medium from the Information Film Producers of America, 1980. His other work for public radio includes adaptations of Kate Chopin's story, "Desiree's Baby," set in the countryside near Lafayette, of "The Open Boat," by Stephen Crane, and of some classic stories by the French writer Marguerite Yourcenar, presented as a 90-minute drama, "Four Women in Love," which he also directed. New York’s Newsday hailed VIRGIL SUAREZ’S Latin Jazz as "[A] striking debut. A well crafted and sensitive novel. Suarez is marvelous." Kirkus Reviews hails Suarez as a leading spokesperson for his generation of Cuban Americans, admiring his writing as "an exploration of fundamental tensions in a community for whom Suarez is becoming an eloquent voice." Publishers Weekly sums it up best with their simple statement, "Suarez sparkles." He has published novels (Latin Jazz, The Cutter, Havana Thursdays, and Going Under), collections of stories and non-fiction (Welcome to the Oasis and Spared Angola: Memories from a Cuban-American Childhood), and poetry (Garabato Poems). Born in Havana in 1962, the only son of a sweatshop patterncutter and piecemeal seamstress, Suarez came to the United States twelve years later, and received an MFA in creative writing from LSU in 1987. His work explores the themes of immigration, identity, dislocation and acclimatization to life and culture in the United States. The tenuous ground between foreign and native, exile and acceptance, is the basis for numerous stories, translations, essays, and poems published in literary journals such as Ploughshares, Prarie Schooner, TriQuarterly, Colorado Review, American Literary Review, and The North American Review. An active book reviewer for The Los Angeles Times, The Miami Herald, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Tallahassee Democrat as well as editor of several best-selling anthologies of Latino/a literature, including Iguana Dreams: New Latino Fiction, Paper Dance: 55 Latino Poets, and Little Havana Blues, Suarez is now a professor of creative writing at Florida State University. He lives with his wife and daughters in Tallahassee. SPECIAL FEATURE! LOUISIANA SONGWRITERS SHOWCASE This year’s conference will open on Thursday night, September 23rd with the first ever Deep South Songwriters Night. We are pleased to present two of the finest songwriting talents this musically rich area has to offer, featured artists David Egan and Sam Broussard. DAVID EGAN was born in Shreveport, LA, and studied jazz and composition at North Texas State University. He worked as pianist with A-Train, Joel Sonnier, Filé, and the Louisiana Hayride Band. As a songwriter his work has been covered by Joe Cocker, Percy Sledge, John Mayall, Mavis Staples, Johnny Adams, Irma Thomas, Marsha Ball, Tracy Nelson, and many more. He resides in Lafayette, and tours with Filé. Egan’s recent work can be heard on Filé’s latest album, La Vie Marron. SAM BROUSSARD has been a distinguished fixture of the Lafayette arts community for many years as poet, song-writer, and guitarist in a wide variety of musical contexts. He is currently working at home in Lafayette on two CDs, preparing for the performing songwriter circuit after winning two major songwriting competitions, the Wildflower Arts and Music Festival in Dallas and the Colorado Composers Classic. His songs have been recorded by Franco-Swiss rock star Stephan Eicher, and he has worked both with contemporary musicians in jazz and rock (including such artists as Jimmy Buffett, Michael Martin Murphy, and Zachary Richard) and with traditional Cajun and zydeco musicians. We invite all writers and music enthusiasts alike to come out and meet these two talented artists. After performing their work, Egan and Broussard will talk about the way their local roots and culture affect their own music and the music of other songwriters they know. Then they’ll welcome questions from the audience. PANELS Once again this year, the Deep South Writers Conference will present panels designed to allow conference participants to express their concerns and interests as writers and scholars. While all details have not been concluded as of this date, we expect a variety of presentations on the place of the "local" in creative writing pedagogy, and in our writing in general. Once again, the USL Folklore Program will present a panel that will examine such local effects on the literary as "Boudreau and Thibodeau" jokes and the physical landscape of this region, with special attention to the relation between the New Roads area and the work of Ernest Gaines. SPECIAL FEATURE: PANEL OF EDITORS In addition, we have invited a group of literary editors from a variety of publishing organizations for an open and frank discussion of the ways in which the "local" affects their editorial strategies and decisions. The roster will include: Chair: Skip Fox Literary Journal: Jack Bedell (Louisiana Literature) and William Lavender (New Orleans Review) Daily Newspaper: Walter Pierce (The Daily Advertiser) University Press: [We’re still working on this one.] INTENSIVE WRITING WORKSHOPS Once again Deep South will offer intensive writing workshops for conference participants, encouraging helpful response and fresh criticism on manuscripts in progress. Workshop registrants will critique their own work as well as the work of their peers under the guidance of experienced writers. Writers of all levels are encouraged to enroll. Participants receive copies of each others’ manuscripts in advance with instructions on how to review and respond to them. Intensive writing workshops will be conducted by Toi Derricotte and Darrell Bourque in poetry, by Virgil Suarez and George Clark in short fiction, by Mary Cappello in non-fiction, and by USL professor Sylvia Iskander in children’s fiction. And because of last year’s extraordinary interest, we have doubled the number of Beginners Workshops in Fiction and Poetry, directed by graduate students of the USL Creative Writing Program. Finally, the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana will sponsor a workshop for poetry and fiction in French. Enrollment in the workshops is limited to twelve participants per workshop on a first-come basis, and involves a supplementary fee (see Registration form for details). If the demand for workshops exceeds expectations, additional workshops will be scheduled. VERY IMPORTANT!! WRITERS WISHING TO ENROLL IN ONE OR MORE OF THESE WORKSHOPS SHOULD REGISTER AND SEND THEIR MANUSCRIPTS BY SEPTEMBER 15TH (WE MUST RECEIVE THEM BY THIS DATE IN ORDER TO MAKE COPIES FOR ALL PARTICIPANTS!) TO: Dr. Jerry McGuire Deep South Writers Conference English Department, Box 44691 Lafayette, LA 70504-4691. For poetry manuscripts, please submit 3 poems, typed. For prose manuscripts, submit up to 12 pages typed, double-spaced. SPECIAL FEATURE! WORKSHOP BY SANDY LYNE OF THE INNER WRITER PROGRAM: "SPIRIT OF PLACE" Sandy Lyne has taught poetry writing to over 40,000 young people and several thousand classroom teachers. He is a frequent presenter of workshops to teachers nationwide through the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. His collection of poems by young people, Ten-Second Rainshowers (Simon & Schuster), has been showcased twice on National Public Radio. A new collection, Soft Hay Will Catch You, will be coming out in the year 2000 (also from Simon & Schuster). His own poems have appeared in numerous journals, including The American Poetry review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Poetry East, Ploughshares, and Louisiana Literature. His poems have also appeared in two anthologies of American poets, Quickly Aging Here (Doubleday) and Shake the Kaleidoscope (Simon & Schuster) and in two collections, The Invention of Dragons and The Love of Simple Things. He lives in Lafayette. His workshop at Deep South will be valuable for anyone interested in making poetry available and fun for others. He will lead a discussion of ways to use the "spirit of place" to help students and children (and the adults in the workshop, too) improve their connection to the sources of their poems. WRITERS CRAWLING EVER UPWARDS!!!!! In response to great demand from last year’s participants, the graduate students in the Creative Writing Concentration will once again host their open-microphone reading for all conference participants as a traveling caravan through selected venues in the Lafayette community. After Saturday night’s reading by Virgil Suarez and Toi Derricotte, we’ll tour the local arts/literary scene, giving open readings as we go. Last year we read at a coffee house, a restaurant, and an art gallery, and we expect another lively night of eating, drinking, and reading poetry and prose. As a special touch, we’ve asked three of the finest young performance poets in the state--Christian Champaigne from New Orleans, Clara Connell from Baton Rouge, and Bernard Pearce from Lafayette--to read their work and serve as emcees at our three venues. THE DEEP SOUTH WRITERS CONFERENCE CONTEST RESULTS As in years past, the winners of the Deep South Writers Conference Contest will be honored at a special ceremony preceding Friday night’s reading by Mary Cappello and George Clark. The winning authors in the categories of Short Fiction, Young Adult Fiction, Children’s Fiction, Novel, French Poetry, and French Prose will be announced, as will the winners of the Ethel Harvey Award (Nonfiction), the John Z. Bennett Award (Poetry), the Paul T. Nolan Award (One-Act Play), and the James H. Wilson Award (Full-Length Play). Winners, contenders, and future hopefuls are encouraged to attend the ceremonies. After the reading, we’ll caravan to Judith Meriwether’s house for refreshments. SUNDAY BREAKFAST Every year we try to arrange some events for Sunday Morning to open our eyes and send us home happy. This year we have two events--the panel of editors described above, and a special appearance by USL’s distinguished Writer-in-Residence, Ernest Gaines, who will read from his fiction and answer questions about the place of the local in his extraordinary body of writing. We’ve been promised a breakfast of home-made cornbread, fig preserves, and Steen syrup, so be prepared. CONFERENCE REGISTRATION: HOW TO BE A PART OF THE WEEKEND There is a $40.00 registration for the conference which rises to $50.00 after September 15th. The Deep South Writers Conference is one of the most affordable writing conferences in the United States, due in large part to the support received from sponsors, without whom a gathering of talent like this would not be possible. The program is supported by a grant from the Louisiana Division of the Arts, by a Partnership Award from the Acadiana Arts Council, and by the Department of English and the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Southwestern Louisiana. But the greatest measure of The Conference’s success continues to be the enrollment of writers who wish to contribute to and benefit from such a gathering. Registration (see attached schedule and registration form) includes lectures, panel discussions, and special events. For more information, interested writers and artists may contact Jerry McGuire at 318-482-5478, or by email at jlm8047@usl.edu, or write to: Deep South Writers Conference English Department, Box 44691 University of Southwestern Louisiana Lafayette, LA 70504-4691 And check out our website: http://www.usl.edu/Departments/English/ (when you get there, click on "Deep South Writers Conference"). LODGING AND ACCOMMODATIONS We have arranged for several hotels to provide rooms at special conference rates. Please call one of the following, and be sure to tell them when making your reservation that you are attending the USL Deep South Writers Conference: Comfort Inn, 1421 SE Evangeline Thruway (800-800-8752); rates not established; call for information. Ramada Inn, 120 E. Kaliste Saloom Rd. (318-235-0858; ask for Tammy Hayes or Grant McCall); single or double occupancy $45; 3 or 4 occupants $55. Reserve by Sept. 20. Travelodge, 1101 West Pinhook Rd. (800-578-7878), call for rate. Reserve by Sept. 20. We’re looking forward to a great conference--please come join us! DEEP SOUTH WRITERS CONFERENCE SCHEDULE OF EVENTS (The following schedule may have to undergo minor adjustments as visiting artists and panelists finalize their travel arrangements.) Thursday, September 23 7 pm Two Louisiana Song-Writers--Sam Broussard and David Egan 9 pm Q & A with Sam Broussard and David Egan--The Local in Song Friday, September 24 1:30-2:30 Reading by Darrell Bourque and Burton Raffel 1:30-3:30 CODIFIL Workshop in French Poetry and Fiction 2:30-3:30 Fiction Workshop for Beginners 2:30-3:30 Poetry Workshop for Beginners 2:30-4:30 Workshop: Short Fiction--George Clark 2:30-4:30 Workshop: Poetry--Darrell Bourque 2:30-4:30 Workshop: Writing for Children--Sylvia Iskander 5-6 Reading: National Writing Project 6:30 Awards Ceremony for 1999 Deep South Writers Contest 7:00 Featured Readings--Mary Cappello and George Clark 8:30 Party at Judith Meriwether’s house Saturday, September 26 8-10 Hospitality and coffee, book signings by featured authors 9-10 Opening ceremonies 9:30-11 Craft Discussion (Cappello, Derricotte, Pecile, Suarez)— "Writing the Local" 10-11 Pedagogy Panel 10-12 Fiction Workshop for Beginners 10-12 Poetry Workshop for Beginners 10-12 Workshop: Adapting Stories for Film and Radio—Jordon Pecile 10-12 Workshop: Poetry with Toi Derricotte 10-12 Workshop: Short Fiction--Virgil Suarez 11-12 Panel: Open Topic Noon: Lunch--"Caravans" to local restaurants 1:30-2:30 Fiction Reading-Jordon Pecile 2:30-4:30 Workshop: Creative Non-Fiction--Mary Cappello 2:30-4:30 Sandy Lyne Workshop in Teaching Creative Writing: "Spirit of Place" 3:30-4:30 Folklore Panel with Marcia Gaudet, John Lauden, and Laura Westbrook: "Louisiana: Between the Local and the Literary" 7 Featured Reading--Toi Derricotte and Virgil Suarez 9 Writers’ Crawl/Open Mike--various locations to be announced Sunday, September 27 9 Sunday Breakfast Special 9:15-10:45 What Do We Do with the Local? Panel of Editors 11-12 Reading and Discussion with Ernest Gaines 12 Closing Ceremonies Cut Here *#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#and Return REGISTRATION AND FEES FOR THE 1999 DEEP SOUTH WRITERS CONFERENCE Please fill out, detach, and mail form and check to the address below: Name________________________________________________ Address________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ Telephone____________________________email___________ PRE-REGISTRATION AND REGISTRATION Pre-Registration Fee................................$40............. ______________________________________________ Late Registration fee (After September 15).....$50............ ______________________________________________ USL Students with ID.............................free........ ______________________________________________ Other Students with ID............................$25........ ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ WORKSHOP FEES ($40 FOR ONE WORKSHOP; $20 FOR EACH ADDITIONAL WORKSHOP) Please put an X beside the ones for which you wish to register. Workshops will be closed at 12 members. Poetry Workshop-Toi Derricotte..................... Poetry Workshop-Darrell Bourque.......................... Workshop in Teaching Poetry-Sandy Lyne: "Spirit of Place".......... Fiction Workshop-Virgil Suarez...................... Fiction Workshop-George Clark............................... Creative Non-Fiction-Mary Cappello.................... Workshop in Adapting Ficton to Film-Jordon Pecile................. Children's Fiction Workshop-Sylvia Iskander.......................... CODOFIL Workshop: Poetry and Fiction in French.............. Beginners Poetry Workshop with USL Graduate Creative Writers-Friday ($20)................ Beginners Fiction Workshop with USL Graduate Creative Writers Friday($20)................. Beginners Poetry Workshop with USL Graduate Creative Writers-Saturday ($20)............. Beginners Fiction Workshop with USL Graduate Creative Writers Saturday ($20)............. TOTAL: REGISTRATION PLUS WORKSHOP FEES_______________ Please indicate which fees you are paying (by placing an X after the dotted line following the entry) and return this form with your check made payable to: DEEP SOUTH WRITERS CONFERENCE. Send form and check (please be sure to specify name of participant, if different from name on check) to this address: Deep South Writers Conference English Dept., Box 44691 University of Southwestern Louisiana Lafayette LA 70504-4691 Please call or email Jerry McGuire with any further questions: telephone: 318-482-5478 email: jlm8047@usl.edu The program is supported in part by a grant from the Louisiana Division of the Arts and by a Partnership Award from the Acadiana Arts Council, with funds provided by the City of Lafayette, the Lafayette Parish Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts -- ________________________________________________________ Jerry McGuire Director of Creative Writing English Department Box 44691 University of Southwestern Louisiana Lafayette LA 70504-4691 318-482-5478 ________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 13:42:08 -1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Juliana Spahr Subject: syllabus for Critical Writing Workshop MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Last year I asked for suggestions for works for a Critical Writing Workshop that I was teaching in the fall. And many people gave me great suggestions. Some of the suggestions I am using in the workshop. Some of them I'm not using, but enjoyed reading. Just wanted to say thanks all now that I've done a version of the syllabus. The syllabus is at http://www2.hawaii.edu/~spahr if anyone wants to see the results. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 02:53:21 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: eve MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII =-- eve sometimes we'd speak late in the midwest afternoon when the sun shot like yellow foam, brittle and harsh, across the dying fields, he'd turn to me, it wasn't all that long ago, there were still those few dark specks in the sky, those broken stalks, those leaves, i remember, i'd be waiting ... sometimes there will be a whole damn text, he said, taking the cigarette out of his mouth for one last time in this godforsaken world, a whole damn text with noise elements scattered all through it like argonauts in that field, and there will be the slightest point in the world, here he looked up at the sun and sky falling on the baked-stone earth, crops withered and gone just like that another year, corn silk drab like radiation-hair, crashed out, there will be this slightest point, and all the noise pro- vides a framework for it, an exegesis so to speak, as if it were enough, as if it added to the point being made, there were thin black birds above/ beyond/just about everywhere, looking for the last seeds in the world, dust-devils in the distance, bird-throats parched and silent, uncanny isn't it, he said, the silence, then again, all the noise in the text, as i was saying, what would that be about, what would that point be then?, here he looked at me, waiting, and as I said nothing, he continued, well it's a requirement, sense of space, you could turn it around, god's signa- ture, so i'm told, he looked at me directly now, is everywhere, more in the noise than the silence i fill with my scrabblings, turned and saun- tered away as if that was all there was to it, nothing more to be said ________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 14:33:00 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Carter Subject: caught up in a muse- Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable { } caught up in a museum many wanted out after having paid so much during and= for years of instruction they now wanted out of such confining refining= spaces where vast reaches intervals real ether-bloaters physicality= substrate defense and not even the way that notice aggravates both waves= hello and halo such a small apartment three deck-hands swept overboard an= invasion and some blood was spilt 'n' spelt this came as some snort of a= relief in the midst of no signals zone challenge along night's highway= being fed by sheroes and heroes who by example shower the waves madness= gladness down in it and emerge porpoise-like joyously gasping desperately= grasping too often a little ragged to wonderstate comes with the= terrorstory along with the innumerable blissings try t' count'em oh yes to= the magnetics here at work that stimulate give thanks in the millions but= not there to end nor resolvingly mend at the door the shatterers hurtful= beneficial views/praxis aswirl -- ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 15:44:08 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lynn Miller Subject: A note on "gibes" and "power-lusty" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Pieces of a Great Design Future: soft identities for identification and cross-identification effects resocialized in a filter that takes up the lines of rupture between biographical reality and implications not clear in the (off-the-cuff) commentary. Let the sun shine in. The Talmudic aspect of Dodie's interaction asserting the commentary is open for interpretation right then and there with the impulse-energy of Pica's intervention in Drylongso ("Bitch, what the fuck are you talking about.") I am not sure of this (role) gender-switched, a Bitch, formerly "Bastard" (a speculative, or Zhenodtel, moment). My first instinct is to remember Rattray's comment on Crevel: "But when those working-class guys (Bellamy and her circle of young poets) showed up from the factory with their own script, he recognized he was in a world all his own, out of touch and full of shit." 'My' Steve Abbott is of course a narrow, ideological (even dogmatic) reading across SOUP 1-4 and the ACTS "Conversations with Aliens" (manifest double-consciousness immersed in the identity of the master) based basically on a hunch that if the Conversations were translated into Hungarian a reader from Budapest, for example, would hear Jozsef--a hunch based on a notion about moments of buried time and finding an originary home of a proletarian expressionism. This is why permission must be asked of Steve Abbott's community--one of the first to register the kicks and blows and even, fatality, in the increasingly crisis laden physical spaces we inhabit--to lift this author's name into a dedication to a book of poems rooted in conflict, class conflict, and yes, I've wandered around the web site, "a-paul-ed" as Mary Engle would say, by my being unable to find anything in the biographical materials remotely resembling what I needed to imagine might be there, something close to the profound human squalor of my own child-home. What is the fulcrum between the imagined and the real? The Derrida passage on Chris Hani helped me out a lot on the 'martyrdom' schtick (that and the news that a local hate-group here was calling a killed vice-cop a Law and Order "Martyr"). Speaking out, Bellamy reminds me of my own impatience and anger at the editorial boundaries/frame of Moscow editions of Lenin, whose footnotes tend to convey an irreality similar to the shadows cast in the comment gratefully updated. A news update. Good news. News of poets reinterpreting the underground as a place where the sun really does shine AND NARRATIVE AND a message from Russia! Masha, the best I can respond in the interface between a historian's scholarship on Revlutionary Russia from the University of Akron and your first-person historical experience is to appeal to the question of translation, cultural translation, in which I find the Zhenodtel (a project Clements writes was abolished by Stalin in 1930) (though perhaps it survived in name but not in content) helpful for thinking about the problem of a 'school', even a school of so-called 'poetics,' where, really, there are schools in every city in the U.S. that ought to be observed by an international human rights organization. A passage like the following I also find useful for imagining alternative ways of living among each other: "The Zhenotdel's demise emerged from a similar transition in the Soviet Union. By the end of the 1920's, the party leadership had disavowed earlier proposals for free love, communal living, and collective childrearing, proposals that had always been dangerously unpopular with the Soviet people, particularly the peasants. Instead, the party endorsed premarital chastity and the pattern of a nuclear family bound together by love, respect, and fidelity between the spouses. This Soviet conceptualization of the family marked a compromise. It was not simply traditional, for the Russian traditional family had been extended rather than nuclear, and far more severely patriarchal. But neither did the new Soviet ideal go so far as Bolshevik feminists such as Kollontai and Inessa [Armand] had wanted. Repudiated were their notions of intimate life transformed to promote individual sexual and emotional fulfillment. Instead, official spokespeople--propagandists and party leaders--endorsed long-term monogamy and extolled its value to the proper care of children." (from "The oneset of the Stalin era," pp. 275). Your expression, "power-lusty," is one of those happy moments that occur in the passages between two languages. The concept that comes through is quite familiar in critiques of patriarchal (dominative) matrices, though as a counter-balance I keep the line "your my drives that do attend so well to lust & thought" close to considerations of 'overstepping' or 'dominating' in the performance of a strong identity in the labor of participating among others in the development of ever larger collective identities, and proposing with others alliances across essentialist constructions like gender and? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 03:19:20 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: the adventure MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII = the adventure i walk the narrow defile with the valley to the right the valley to the east, the valley to the south enter the forest and there is the valley it's the writing which comes and begs to be understood the writing comes begging, asks you to keep it oh keep it fondly this writing, kick it where it belongs hurt this writing until it cries, give it a read now and then it doesn't matter much what happens to it as long as i believe it will be there and tended lovingly and for now, and just what you might think forever would be promise me anything, i won't hold you to it i'll be gone, nothing more to be said, you can pretend, can't you there's a stream gone down the valley, down into a slit beyond, there's always beyond, dry bones of the valley floor you can find a grating there, open it with your key crawl along, look for the manuscripts stacking the walls if you play adventure, you'll know what i mean read them, they're mine, each and every one they're precious as the daylight in this dim world you can pretend you're reading at the very least you'll find someone throwing a knife at you, DON'T THINK ABOUT ME turn around quickly, back out of that place, your wits intact there are others _______________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 09:21:58 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dodie Bellamy Subject: summer prose workshop reading Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" I will be hosting a reading of my summer prose workshop: September 1, Wednesday, 7:30 p.m. New College Cultural Center 766 Valencia Street (between 18th and 19th) Free Readers: Margaret Crane Mark Ewert Johanna Isaacson Kevin Killian Suzi Markham Alvin Orloff Michael Sasso Joshua Schuster Blaise Zerega ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 12:24:35 -0400 Reply-To: levitsk@ibm.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: R Democracy Subject: BELLADONNA @ Bluestockings--Please pass along Comments: To: wskramer@EROLS.COM, waltera@poz.com, sfmarlow@mindspring.com, shana@bway.net, silver@airs.com, sklevin@aecom.yu.edu, TROTROCHE@cwix.com, DioNicer@aol.com, prapra@aol.com, mbpratt@earthlink.net, mrrrwrm@ibm.net, MNoyes1234@aol.com, macape@bway.net, 110165.74@COMPUSERVE.COM, Lisa Miller , jarnot@PIPELINE.COM, lesneel@aol.com, LCagan@people-link.com, leeann@ferro-luzzi.org, laura@naropa.edu, llnuss@mindspring.com, kates@inch.com, Joypanther@aol.com, Joypanther@aol.com, Jon.Nalley@TFN.com, bentlight@earthlink.net, joe319@echonyc.com, jocelyn@sfdu.edu, merce@sfsu.edu, Nguyenhoa@hotmail.com, rescuefantasy@mailcity.com, chanmann@dolphin.upenn.edu, Fufkin2@ibm.net, frans@sopriswest.com, emoure@total.net, elloyd74@hotmail.com, EOrleans@aol.com, ewillis@mills.edu, elizabethshipley@stmartins.com, Easter8@aol.com, dbkk@SIRIUS.COM, booglit@hotmail.com, verde@people-link.com, hivplusacd@aol.com, cbh207@is6.nyu.edu, lstroffo@HORNET.LIUNET.EDU, bluestocking@jps.net, ARealuyo@aol.com, EFagin@law.columbia.edu, BetsyAndrews@yahoo.com, Al Kelly , Urbantheme@aol.com, sondheim@panix.com, Sue MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Announcing the first of a monthly series: Poetry Reading: Akilah Oliver (the she said dialogues, Smokehouse Press, 1999) and Marcella Durand (City of Ports, Situations, 1999) will inaugurate the BELLADONNA* Reading Series at the Bluestockings Women's Bookstore at 172 Allen Street between Rivington and Stanton on the Lower East Side of Manhattan on Thursday, August 26 at 9:00 pm. Contact (212) 777-6028 for info. (There will be 15 minutes provided for open readers--all women but men are welcome as audience members). ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 13:24:55 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Kimmelman, Burt" Subject: Cid Corman Comments: cc: "jack_bedford@yahoo.com" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain John Phillips has written to me about Cid Corman and I asked that he give me permission to post a message to the list for him in Cid's behalf, which he did, as follows. Burt Kimmelman CID CORMAN'S PLIGHT I am writing to make people aware of the plight of Cid Corman. His situation at the moment is precarious, to say the least. Doubtless it has always been so, but presently it appears to be nearing crisis point. Uncertainty even as to making it through the year. I hope to reach poets / old time friends / academics/ readers / any one with a voice that can speak out - to see whether there is a way open to putting him forward for some kind of funding, grant or award. A means for him to find the means to go on surviving. It should hardly be necessary to make out a case as to the importance of the work he has done - for so many years - through ORIGIN & ORIGIN PRESS, publishing many of the seminal poets of the 20th Century - Creeley, Snyder, Olson, Bronk, Eigner - the list goes on - or to the value and brilliance of his own poems & translations. And yet Cid has remained almost invisible, his whole life - wholeheartedly - dedicated to the poetry he believes life is. However, invisibility - eventually - makes it hard to survive. And I have felt an undercurrent of worry from him recently - and - as always with Cid - his worry and concern comes out - perhaps first & foremost - for other poets he could be helping, opening the world up to, were he able. Yet the priority - I feel - at this moment - must be his own survival and his own work. This year, & finally, the 3rd vol. of OF - the summation of his life's work & a book like no other - ever - was published. But there are 2 more volumes that must still see the light of day. The only manuscripts of these are in his flimsy house in Kyoto. I don't think the world of poetry - of those who value poetry - and the human beings who create it - can rest easy knowing that such a major work is in so vulnerable a position. Especially taking into account the fact that even Cid remaining housed in his rented accommodation is under some threat at the present time. I hope - with enough support garnered - and with a volume of Cid's poetry coming out from NEW DIRECTIONS in the fall - that there's a chance of stirring up the necessary & vital funding. It could only be a question of getting momentum going - telling people he is still alive and writing a book a day! At least - at last - a late recognition of his gift to poetry. Surely enough folks being made aware of his plight would open eyes - hearts - pull up a few of the floorboards where the bundles of cash are hidden for worthy causes? And I can think of few - if any - who have done as much for the world of poetry as Cid. Maybe now the world of poetry should come together to help him. What do you reckon? If you feel to make a response, perhaps giving hints as to places / people I could go to for help, please email me: " John Phillips" * Alternatively - & even tho my real hope is to raise awareness of his plight & gain access to some major funding - I realise there might be some reading this who feel to make a small contribution of aid - directly to Cid. If so, please contact me & I will gladly send you the necessary details. John Phillips (jack_bedford@yahoo.com) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 14:10:11 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: a note on sending petitions MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi. Over the past month, numerous copies of the PBS/NPR funding petition have been sent to the list by various subscribers. Here is a very brief history lesson re this petition, taken from another list's archive : > The NPR/PBS petition was once a misguided, yet earnest effort of some > undergrads at the University of Northern Colorado at Greely. Due to poor > planning on their part and naievete about "things Internet", it blew up > and turned into a "monster", similar to other Internet hoaxes, such as > "Good Times Virus," "Nieman-Marcus cookie recipe," [...] and many > others--all bogus! Further information is available at the University of Northern Colorado website : > In 1995 two well-meaning but misguided students at UNC started an email > petition regarding pending legislation that would affect the funding for PBS > and NPR. They didn't mean to open a can of worms, but they did. The > petition is still circulating on the Internet and has taken on a life of its own. In other words, while govt support of public media remains an issue, this petition is not the solution. Now, while I think this list can and should be a place where petitions and information on matters political can be exchanged, I would urge subscribers to read carefully and do a little research before submitting any such thing to the list. Some guidelines might be: does the petition or press release contain a date? does it refer to other sources of information on the web or elsewhere? what corroborating sources can *you* provide? what is the *most current* status of the issue in question? In general, I think it would be more effective to have posts written by subscribers to this list or direct acquaintances of same, and that summarize an issue, provide further resources and contact information (i.e., URLs, snail-mail and email addresses) for the parties involved. Another possibility might be to do a little research and "pen" a sample letter of protest which can be easily adapted by your fellow subscribers. Activism of any kind quite simply requires more work than any electronic petition would imply; the internet can be a good tool to facilitate such work, but doesn't ultimately replace sweat, tears, and song. best, Chris % Christopher W. Alexander % poetics list moderator ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 23:17:16 +0000 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Todd Baron /*/ ReMap Readers Organization: Re*Map Subject: Re: Charles Macaulay + LeLand Hickman!@ MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Charles was a consumate actor--and Lee met him when Lee was studying theater in new york. Charles lent a wonderful ear to Temblor mag. and helped Lee maintain what in LA and elsewhere was a truly brilliant output. I'd like to add that anyone not familiar with lee's work--read it. Jawbone press a few years back published Lee Senior Falls to the Floor. I've rarely seen (in memory) a better reader and/or more noble editor than Lee. Todd Baron ReMap ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 19:40:47 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: R M Daley Subject: Re: oh my god: cut-ups / "homosexualization of the New Yorkavant-garde" -Reply In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 18 Aug 1999, Jeffrey Jullich wrote: > Maria Damon, for one, seems to agree about Earl Jackson that a good > connection between "the homosexualization of the New York > avant-garde" and cut-ups can at least be argued. Are you saying there > is no connection? yeah > > > >>>3. not everyone has to have babies - some women don't have babies > - some women who fuck with men don't have babies - some women > who fuck with women don't have babies - some women who fuck men > have babies and then give them away - . . . > > Gertrude Stein couldn't have said it better. (I did identify "the childless > homosexual" as a fallacy.) True, all exhaustively true. But that's > empiricism. I was speaking hypothetically. > oh rd ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 12:40:57 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: Cid Corman / Mills MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Had to reformat this message. Please remember the stricture against HTML formatting on the Poetics List; it fouls the archive and sours the moderator. [a bit of levity.] Chris -- From: "Mills, Billy" Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 12:42:01 +0100 Just read the message about Cid on yesterday's digest, and I wanted to add my own bit. This man should be an American national treasure. He is the most unselfish poet I've ever had the pleasure to deal with, and has done more for the poetry he loves than anyone alive. There must be some way for the richest nation on earth to keep him alive and housed. That's it. Billy Mills ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 07:22:31 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: Re: Charles Macaulay In-Reply-To: <19990820155616.49605.qmail@hotmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" When I first met Charles Macaulay he and Leland Hickman invited me to dinner when they lived in North Hollywood, and I went with Matias Viegener, and it was very late and dark and Charles answered the doorbell, and he looked so familiar I gave out an inadvertent, no not scream, but a low moan. Matias had the presence of mind to ask Charles for his autograph, having recognized him from TV. (Charles played on several episodes of Star Trek, he was Jaris in "Wolf in the Fold" and Landru in the "Return of the Archons" episode.") He wasn't a star, but because one had seen him so often on TV in sitcoms, soaps, whatever, one felt one knew him so intimately and so well--very different from meeting any other kind of stranger. Of course he and Lee had the glamor of their close association with Raymond Burr, one of Hollywood's more mysterious figures, ever since I was a little boy watching Raymond Burr putting his wife in that trunk in "Rear Window" or prosecuting poor Montgomery Clift in "A Place in the Sun" before that. Just last week I was trying to track him down to obtain permission for Timothy Liu to reprint some of Lee Hickman's poems for the new postwar gay male anthology planned by Talisman House Press. And then Lynda Claussen got on the case too (the Archive for New Poetry at UCSD controls the copyrights, thank God, for Hickman's work) and she sadly reported that Charles was in the hospital and wasn't going to come out of it. As Ron Silliman says, people do forget, it's only natural I suppose. We've got so much on our brains all the time just trying to make it from day to day. "Born of the sun they travelled a short while towards the sun,/ And left the vivid air signed with their honour." ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 20:57:09 +0000 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Todd Baron /*/ ReMap Readers Organization: Re*Map Subject: Re: Charles Macaulay MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > As Ron Silliman says, people do forget, it's only natural I suppose. > We've got so much on our brains all the time just trying to make it > from day to day. "Born of the sun they travelled a short while > towards the sun,/ And left the vivid air signed with their honour." the saddest thing is that people have forgotten Lee--who never forgot a single soul. Again--I want to say that as a reader, editor, voice, poet, Lee was without a doubt--the man. Perhaps it's this sad place call'd Los Angeles that did not allow him the scope he might have had had he lived "up north" or "back east". Sadly, things in LA are not much but in-fights and such--and if Lee were here he wold have a BIGGER fight--as he could make anyone cry or moan or laugh--but the persistency of his DEDICATION is one truly lost. The poem was the thing. 7 page letters to me about single poems he DIDn't like of mine--etc. I had the great pleasure of helping a bit with Temblor--gettting it placed in shops in SF--and he'd call THE NEXT DAY to see if any had sold or had I read the entire thing last night? He pushed where pushing belonged--reminding me of Olson or Duncan--and certainly,, certainly, the core of the work--always. Having taken me at twenty and said--read this--not "this poet" --but---"this poem". Lee was love. simply. as love is surely dedication (and song). Todd Baron ReMap ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 13:18:01 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brian Stefans Subject: And Try Again Comments: cc: "K.M. Sutherland" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Keston Sutherland, a young British poet, e-mailed me this poem on Tuesday, claiming that he "just can't keep [his] mitts off O'Hara" these days. I've known the problem myself, but O'Hara's only blushed, not bruised -- he's done a greater disservice by his (hardcover) defenders, I feel. In any case, I thought it quite funny, bold, provocative, right and wrong, but well-written: AND TRY AGAIN Dainty failure of the lyric, rising with a tick of mellow fury to an end that cloys, fast as the food whose time it crowns. Three key errors of Frelimo: pushed too rapidly for heavy industry and gave too little support to the peasant sector. Retained one-party state and govt. structures of the colonial era, centralized like those of socialists in E. Europe. Failed to predict how the climate internationally would change: second oil price rise, sharp rise in interest rates, Frank O'Hara, pathos, private recollection, innovative cracks in grammar, fetishistic ploy of leaving meaning for the dogs to sigh on. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 13:31:34 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Radio MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - Radio You say, "I am your radio Budi-Buda" Nikuko is your radio radio radio Alway Luvly Swolen Beli Want for You to Look in Him Contents: iBud It's already open. You say, "I am your radio radio radio" Nikuko is your radio radio radio Nikuko Brooding Buti or Buda / Pest She is awake and looks alert. Carrying: Budi Brawned MassIve Tissu Hunger for Yu to Be Swallow Contents: Bud Brawned MassIve Tissu Hunger for Yu to Be Swallow Contents: Bud take what? I don't understand that! You already have that! It's already open! Brawned MassIve Tissu Hunger for Yu to Be Swallow Contents: Bud You say, "Budi Budi Budi" You say, "radio radio radio radio radio" Nikuko is your radio radio radio You say, "Nikuko is your radio radio radio radio radio" You say, "radio radio" I see no "radio" here. You now have radio with object number #695 and parent generic thing (#5). You drop radio. You hug radio in a warm and loving embrace. You kiss radio sweetly You say, "radio radio radio" Nikuko says radio radio radio Nikuko is your radio radio radio radio radio You say, "Budi Budi Budi" Is your radio. ________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 13:53:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Magee Subject: Re: And Try Again In-Reply-To: <199908241720.NAA10300@interlock.randomhouse.com> from "Brian Stefans" at Aug 24, 99 01:18:01 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Brian, thanks for sending Keston's poem along. You're right I think, much well-written here. But the O'Hara needling, I don't know...does it really seem worthwhile to you? To label O'Hara's grammar and motives as "fetishistic" seems rather facile to me -- and to figure them as a "ploy" not a little paranoid. If "leaving meaning for the dogs to sigh on" is a ploy on O'Hara's part, it strikes me as a pretty good one -- in which he, say, de-authorizes his texts by figuring them as "meaningless" (or, more precisely, "trivial") chat. I won't belabor, lest I be seen as too much the defender doing FOH disservice. Suffice to say, there is a Marxist critique to be made vis a vis O'Hara's work (as well as, I think, a pretty good rebuttal to such critique, though not a Marxist rebuttal as such) but I don't think Keston's is it. -m. According to Brian Stefans: > > Keston Sutherland, a young British poet, e-mailed me this poem on Tuesday, > claiming that he "just can't keep [his] mitts off O'Hara" these days. I've > known the problem myself, but O'Hara's only blushed, not bruised -- he's > done a greater disservice by his (hardcover) defenders, I feel. In any > case, I thought it quite funny, bold, provocative, right and wrong, but > well-written: > > Failed to predict how the climate > internationally would change: > second oil price rise, sharp rise in > interest rates, Frank O'Hara, > > pathos, private recollection, > innovative cracks in grammar, > fetishistic ploy of leaving > meaning for the dogs to sigh on. > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 11:04:01 PDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Great Slave Suite Comments: To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed I want to second what Todd's been saying about Lee's value as a poet & editor. Great Slave Suite is one of the really great texts. A shorthand, and flip, synopsis might be something like "Maximus cruises the bar scene," but what is so remarkable about this book beyond all its many individual lines, stanzas, riffs, is that the text appears twice, once in the grand architecture of the large poem and then again as a series of discrete pieces. You really have to read it to see how well it works. I learned a lot from that book. My biggest argument with Lee -- and one that I had on several occasions -- was that he was so damned humble he would not include his own poetry in Temblor. It's really time for someone (O Books, Wesleyan, Sun & Moon??) to do a collected books of Leland Hickman. Ron Silliman ----Original Message Follows---- From: Todd Baron /*/ ReMap Readers Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: Charles Macaulay Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 20:57:09 +0000 > As Ron Silliman says, people do forget, it's only natural I suppose. > We've got so much on our brains all the time just trying to make it > from day to day. "Born of the sun they travelled a short while > towards the sun,/ And left the vivid air signed with their honour." the saddest thing is that people have forgotten Lee--who never forgot a single soul. Again--I want to say that as a reader, editor, voice, poet, Lee was without a doubt--the man. Perhaps it's this sad place call'd Los Angeles that did not allow him the scope he might have had had he lived "up north" or "back east". Sadly, things in LA are not much but in-fights and such--and if Lee were here he wold have a BIGGER fight--as he could make anyone cry or moan or laugh--but the persistency of his DEDICATION is one truly lost. The poem was the thing. 7 page letters to me about single poems he DIDn't like of mine--etc. I had the great pleasure of helping a bit with Temblor--gettting it placed in shops in SF--and he'd call THE NEXT DAY to see if any had sold or had I read the entire thing last night? He pushed where pushing belonged--reminding me of Olson or Duncan--and certainly,, certainly, the core of the work--always. Having taken me at twenty and said--read this--not "this poet" --but---"this poem". Lee was love. simply. as love is surely dedication (and song). Todd Baron ReMap _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 13:37:20 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Philip Nikolayev Subject: IN RE THE DEATH OF THE AUTHOR Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" IN RE THE DEATH OF THE AUTHOR As I hear say on the cellular grapevine these days wishful thinking whatever, but as I was saying comes again and forgets you as I was suggesting, leaves disobeying, mumbling to himself, whom he calls poet except of necessity unshaven, idiot, always fiddles with doorknobs taking off real slow and then gaining velocity, knowing not which way the heart’s habit throbs, but real smart fellow, look what he’s got and killed indefinite times over, not to mention a thousand times insolvently inspired, striking root in your thoughts inkling by inkling. The modern critics have long proclaimed him dead. Dim bulbs think they can deconstruct everything. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 13:39:41 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Philip Nikolayev Subject: IN RE THE DEATH OF THE AUTHOR 2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" IN RE THE DEATH OF THE AUTHOR 2 "The imaginary is as real as the real." From postmodern folklore. Mellow, declarative arbitration of and management of my ropy life affairs in academic poverty abrades the will to resolution. And so? Moi, je ne longer care. And as regards the literary sphere, it too is more like a funnel than a globe. I am, dear colleagues, no fop. Fresh mayo be upon your non-Euclidean iconoclastic clamp-on credentials. Boy, this book is giving me ideers. If only this silver autumn I could orchestrate my brave escape from here into another sphere, if only I could silence this parade of decadence into a more winged bender inside this lucid gender-blender. Where are all binary oppositions gone? There comes a day your life goes to the john and never comes back. Smoke of factories in eructating air thickens. The young umbrellas still bloom full of expectation. The heap of days lies multiplied by one. According to your essays and your stories, you’d seen the twitchy, twitchy side of things among the hiccuping magnolias once back in your fuck-up days as academic way off the tenure track in a state of underdress. Tremulously a radical conception in the literature becomes, then unbecomes a revolution. Your hands which once clasped the keyboard lie unnerved in the dispersal of your impact. Everything gets inverted. Bye, the sweetest bread critical tongues can buy. Bye-bye, the tenure track! Bye, MLA! They’re turning into chimney folks. I am ontologically telling you, this is yours, this is the real death of the author, dearest colleague. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 14:15:06 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: address query MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi. I need email or snailmail addresses for Robert Gluck Erica Hunt Pamela Lu Laura Moriarty Jena Osman Joan Retallack Nancy Shaw thanks, Chris % Christopher W. Alexander % poetics list moderator ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 14:28:36 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: Granary Books goes wild! / Clay MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I had to reformat this message. Chris -- From: Steven Clay Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 14:17:31 -0400 ********MOVING SALE************* GRANARY BOOKS GOES WILD We've got Poems All Over the Place! New, used, and O.P. Poetry and artist books 20% off Big selection of books up to 90% off All (well, almost all) Granary trade titles 50% off All are welcome. Spread the word. Hours for the sale: Aug 25, 26, 27: 2 pm-7 pm Saturday Aug. 28: 11 am-5 pm 568 Broadway (at Prince) #403, New York City 10012 OR by internet: http://www.granarybooks.com (see complete listing of Granary publications, search or browse our online catalog of over 3000 rare, op, used and select new books). For example: Discount is 50% on the following titles: ARTISTS BOOKS: A CRITICAL SURVEY OF THE LITERATURE by Stefan Klima. 1998. Paperback. 109 pp. "A thoroughly useful guide." Johanna Drucker. ISBN: 1-887123-18-0. Was: $17.95 NOW: $8.98 THE BOOK SPIRITUAL INSTRUMENT edited by Jerome Rothenberg and David Guss. 1996. Paperback. 160 pp. Illustrated. "... new worlds carved out of the wilderness of human thought and language." Charles Bernstein. ISBN: 1-887123-08-3. Was: $21.95 NOW: $10.98 THE CENTURY OF ARTISTS' BOOKS by Johanna Drucker. 1995. Illustrated throughout. 377 pp. "A crucial contribution to the history of the book in visual culture." Buzz Spector. Paperback. ISBN: 1-887123-02-4. Was: $24.95 NOW: $12.48 Cloth. ISBN: 1-887123-01-6. Was: $35 NOW: $17.50 THE CUTTING EDGE OF READING: ARTISTS' BOOKS by Renee Riese Hubert & Judd D. Hubert. 1999. Hardback. 265 pp. Illustrated throughout in color and black and white. ISBN: 1-887123-21-0. Was: $55 NOW: $27.50 FIGURING THE WORD: ESSAYS ON BOOKS, WRITING, AND VISUAL POETICS by Johanna Drucker. 1998. Paperback. Illustrated throughout. 312 pp. ISBN: 1-887123-23-7. Was: $24.95 NOW: $12.48 THE HISTORY OF THE/MY WOR(L)D by Johanna Drucker. 1995. Artist's book with text, images and layout by Drucker. Black, white and red printing. Hardback with letterpress dust jacket. 8 1/2" x 11", 40 pp. ISBN: 1-887123-06-7. Was: $50 NOW: $25 LOG RHYTHMS by Charles Bernstein and Susan Bee. 1998. 22 pp. Artist's book with text by Bernstein and images by Bee. 8 1/2" x 11" black and white; color cover. Paperback. ISBN: 1-887123-25-3. Was: $35. NOW: $17.50 A SECRET LOCATION ON THE LOWER EAST SIDE: ADVENTURES IN WRITING: 1960-1980: A SOURCEBOOK OF INFORMATION by Steven Clay and Rodney Phillips. 1998. A co-publication with the New York Public Library. 340 pp. Paperback. "... a Proustian hit of youthful exuberance, a glance at a time when artists built a community apart from the imprimature of the academy." Village Voice. Illustrated throughout. ISBN: 1-887123-20-2. Was: $27.95 NOW: $13.98 TED BERRIGAN: AN ANNOTATED CHECKLIST by Aaron Fischer. 1998. 68 pp. "I will treasure this book." Ron Padgett. Illustrated throughout in black and white and color. Features many collaborations between Berrigan and George Schneeman. ISBN: 1-887123-17-2. Was: $32.95 NOW: $16.48 Many thanks, Steve Clay ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 14:53:45 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: context middleman rfp / lang ipo MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Not to feed you all into the mass-alternative-media-maw without your consent, but can anybody supply the crucial omitted bibliographical data for the comment in re: William Stafford's "Traveling Through the Dark" as mentioned by Donald Hall in the Sep 99 Harpers Forum "How to Peel a Poem": Hall: The comma with "still" bothers me, because if the fetus is still how do you know it's alive? Alive still? How does he know it's alive? I read once from the speech of a Language poet who ridiculed this poem because it was William Stafford saying, "I'm a nice guy. What a nice guy I am." The other participants are quick to contradict this paraphrase-from-memory as follows: [Paul] Muldoon: I don't think that's what he's saying. [Charles] Simic: Oh, no, no, no, no, no. [Cynthia] Huntington: That's reductive. In fairness to Hall, the forum is a transcript of a discussion of five poems (by Thomas Hardy, Louis MacNeice, Frank O'Hara, William Stafford, and Ezra Pound) over dinner at the Algonquin. Hall's unguarded moment is preserved as just that. All the same, I would like to know whose comments are relayed here, and where I can read them. Citizens for protection from paraphrase-from-memory, Jordan Davis ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 16:22:10 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Lowther,John" Subject: An Other South: experimental writing in the south, p.ii MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain poetix the new orleans review has just come out - An Other South is edited by Bill Lavender and is a sequel to a similar (but much smaller) section that he edited about 4 years ago - it looks really great - there is also an essay by Hank Lazer "Kudzu Textuality: Towards a New Southern Poetry 2" - if anyone is curious to what's happening in the south in terms of poetry this is surely the most interesting statement to date contributors include Doug MacCash Jim Leftwich Hank Lazer Skip Fox Joel Dailey Camille Martin Gerry Cannon Celestine Frost A. Di Michele Bob Grumman Lorenzo Thomas David Thomas Roberts Niyi Osundare Jake Berry Dave Brinks Lindsay Hill Alex Rawls John Elsberg Mark Spitzer Bill Myers Seth Young Jonathan Brannen Andy Young M. Sarki Greg Fuchs Christopher Chambers Bill Lavender Richard Doherty Nancy Harris Dennis Formento Greg Kelley Susan Facknitz Brett Evans Kay Murphy Amy Trussel Paul Naylor Marla Jernigan Gina Entrebe James Sanders Randy Prunty Mark Prejsnar M. Magoolaghan Rebecca Hyman )ohnLowther and Lawless Crow to order $10, payable to Loyola University for New Orleans Review, v. 25, #'s 1&2 to: New Orleans Review Box 195 Loyola University New Orleans, LA 70118 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 16:22:02 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brian Stefans Subject: AND TRY AGAIN Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii No, I think you're right that Keston's not got the last word on FOH here, and we've been bunging each other pretty good e-mails over it. But regarding the poem, I didn't read the last quatrain as being an elaboration on "Frank O'Hara" in the prior stanza, mostly because there's a comma and not a colon seperating them -- had there been a colon, the next items would have been a dependent list. (The title of the poem argues otherwise, of course.) To me, FOH appears in a list of general economic statements that are, in scale, much larger than he himself -- part of the humor of it, I guess -- and the list continues on with other generalities, though with a shift toward issues of poetics, so FOH, ironically, acts as the channeling of these social issues into the aesthetic, though Keston is arguing that his poetry diffused them. But if you think of the final stanza as somehow descriptive of the heirs of O'Hara, perhaps in Keston's idea even including the Language poets, though maybe more surely latter New York school poets, then O'Hara becomes -- due to other aspects of his writing as well, including his synthesized and not-so-synthesized use of many continental modernist methods that had their relevant links to politics of the left and right -- a poet one can read politically (or let's say responsibly, as his heroes were more responsible than political) without a reduction in "pleasure" as folks like David Lehman would have it. O'Hara, for some, comes pretty close to pop art, in that he is seen as blindly assembling a catalogue of how he spends his money and time, how much pleasure he finds in living in the power capital of the world, how thoughtless and hapless and light, etc., but also as an argument against pop art due to his sentimentality, warmth, candour, pathos, etc. -- but he's really much more than that if placed here, where Keston places him, I think (though it's sort of where Pound placed Wordsworth, no -- a diluter?), in a sort of economic nexus. There are many arguments for why all those things appear in his poems, but the most obvious one is the most vulnerable -- that he spent his day doing things (nice things, fun things), and liked to write them down. It doesn't explain how the method works, though, relations to liberated words and Mayakovskian apostrophe, etc. Which means, in the end, that some much better writing has to be done on this guy to wipe away that terrible book which hopefully everyone's forgotten, The Last of the Avant Garde. Oh well, a ramble... but thanks for writing. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 16:29:01 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Adeena Karasick Subject: address query MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Hi. could someone please give me the e-mail addresses for Louis Cabri and Nicole Markotic Thanks so much, Adeena Karasick adeena@compuserve.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 11:09:59 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Wystan Curnow Organization: University of Auckland Subject: Re: context middleman rfp / lang ipo In-Reply-To: <01beee61$fe279d40$LocalHost@blwczoty> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Jordan, I don't think it WAS a 'Language poet' but Marjorie Perloff (not sure where) which for these folk is probably much the same thing. Best, Wystan > Not to feed you all into the mass-alternative-media-maw without your > consent, but can anybody supply the crucial omitted bibliographical data for > the comment in re: William Stafford's "Traveling Through the Dark" as > mentioned by Donald Hall in the Sep 99 Harpers Forum "How to Peel a Poem": > > Hall: The comma with "still" bothers me, because if the fetus is still how > do you know it's alive? Alive still? How does he know it's alive? I read > once from the speech of a Language poet who ridiculed this poem because it > was William Stafford saying, "I'm a nice guy. What a nice guy I am." > > The other participants are quick to contradict this paraphrase-from-memory > as follows: > > [Paul] Muldoon: I don't think that's what he's saying. > [Charles] Simic: Oh, no, no, no, no, no. > [Cynthia] Huntington: That's reductive. > > In fairness to Hall, the forum is a transcript of a discussion of five poems > (by Thomas Hardy, Louis MacNeice, Frank O'Hara, William Stafford, and Ezra > Pound) over dinner at the Algonquin. Hall's unguarded moment is preserved as > just that. All the same, I would like to know whose comments are relayed > here, and where I can read them. > > Citizens for protection from paraphrase-from-memory, > Jordan Davis > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 13:08:02 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Buuck Subject: South Africans strike MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit news (granted, via NYTimes/AP) from South Africa on huge strike, signalling two potentially important alignments - between white & blue collar unions - & b/t COSATU & FUSA - the labor movement still strong in SA, viz. post-apartheid frustrations with free-market liberalism & increasingly hollow post-Mandela nationalist rhetoric (i.e., "be patient my brothers & sisters") - http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-South-Africa-Strike.html ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 09:19:11 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: jesse glass Subject: Re: Cid Corman / Mills MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit What Billy Mills says is true enough, but let me add that Corman's influence on British and Canadian experimental poetry is a matter of record. Indeed, he first introduced Prynne to Olson. Cid is an international literary figure, which means that donations from every quarter would be gratefully accepted. Unfortunately the richest nation on the earth, (not to mention the second richest (Japan)) has turned a deaf ear to earlier versions of the laudable effort currently in process. I hope this one fares better. Cid's position as a long-term expat in Japan makes it especially difficult for him to remain in the grant-giving arena in the U.S. Incredibly, Cid's renowned translations from the Japanese and his position as a long-term "cultural ambassador" has never been rewarded or even formally acknowledged by the U.S. government. Those who wish to help Cid Corman's cause may also write a letter to the current American ambassador to Japan, pointing out Cid's contributions to modern literature and to the dissemination and understanding of Japanese culture, and how Cid is deserving of support. Write to: The Honorable Thomas S. Foley/ 1-10-5 Akasaka/ Minato-ku/ Japan/ 107-8420. Please help. -----Original Message----- From: Poetics List Administration To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Date: Tuesday, August 24, 1999 9:41 AM Subject: Cid Corman / Mills >Had to reformat this message. Please remember the stricture against >HTML formatting on the Poetics List; it fouls the archive and sours >the moderator. [a bit of levity.] Chris > >-- > >From: "Mills, Billy" >Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 12:42:01 +0100 > >Just read the message about Cid on yesterday's digest, and I wanted to add >my own bit. This man should be an American national treasure. He is the most >unselfish poet I've ever had the pleasure to deal with, and has done more >for the poetry he loves than anyone alive. There must be some way for the >richest nation on earth to keep him alive and housed. That's it. > >Billy Mills > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 13:03:06 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: Re: Cid Corman / Mills MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thanks to Jesse Glass for his suggestion that those of us concerned (i.e., poets) write to the current American ambassador to Japan re Cid Corman's situation. This is exactly the sort of chance for some small political efficacy I was trying to point out in my "note re petitions" a few days ago. If even half of the people in this forum sent such a letter, that would be 370+ letters - pretty significant mileage for a few lines of email. I wonder if anyone would volunteer to write a short letter for public use in conjunction with glass' suggestion? I will do it myself, if necessary, but would prefer it done by someone who feels more readily able to speak to the issue - someone who knows well the scope of Corman's work and can make the argument effectively. I might suggest further that any letter made available here be made available elsewhere - on other lists, in a zine or two. Chris % Christopher W. Alexander % poetics list moderator ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 12:57:06 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Peter Minter Subject: 'Empty Texas' promotion Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" I would like to announce the publication of my new collection, 'Empty Texas' (from Paper Bark Press and the Australian Humanities Research Foundation) Comments on 'Empty Texas': 'Arresting and mysterious, the lyrics of Empty Texas are experiments in the syntax of the organic. They speak of the body as the site of passions, of sensation and cognition.' Dr Kate Lilley, University of Sydney. 'Empty Texas is one of the Australian volumes of the decade: innovative, intelligent, witty and replete with superbly crafted poems... its influence will be enduring.' John Kinsella, Churchill College, Cambridge, UK. 'Peter Minter's work is totally energetic, careful, balanced, graceful ... I want to read more!' Ron Silliman, USA. For purchase/distribution details, please contact me or info@gbhap.com regards Peter Minter ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 00:44:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: TUESDAY NIGHT OUT MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII = AUTOPROBE MECHANISM IN X: FAILURE ACROSS THE BORED, TUESDAY NIGHT OUT: [FVWM][Read]: trying to read system rc file /*There isn't any, Nikuko! /bin/sh: xfilemanager: command not found /* It's not installed, Jennifer! X connection to :0.0 broken (explicit kill or server shutdown). /* Application crashed for lack of resources, Julu! CRASH! Vertical speed = -118.589912 ft/sec /* Stupid Stupid Nikuko! Lateral speed = 100.000000 ft/sec Final Score: 0 /* I told you so, Nikuko, "says Jennifer" CRASH! Vertical speed = -118.589912 ft/sec /* Stupid Stupid Jennifer! Lateral speed = 100.000000 ft/sec Final Score: 0 /* I told you so, Jennifer, "says Nikuko" can't load tile font xmahjongg /* You'll have to fuck me now, "says Julu" /bin/sh: xboard: command not found /* It's not installed, Jennifer-Julu! X connection to :0.0 broken (explicit kill or server shutdown). /* You're just gonna have to fuck me now, Jennifer-Nikuko, "says Julu" [FVWM][Done]: <> Call of '/usr/openwin/bin/olvwm' failed!!!! /* You'd rather go to that CRASH-LAND TOKYO bar, "says Nikuko jealously to Jennifer, waiting for a reply, Julu down on all fours, restarting 'fvwm2' instead" _________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 06:00:49 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Loden Subject: American Letters & Commentary special offer MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Apologies for cross-posting . . . _American Letters & Commentary_ is an annual journal dedicated to the publication of challenging, innovative work in all forms by some of the most intriguing voices in American letters. Contributors have included Bruce Andrews, Paul Auster, Charles Bernstein, Charles Borkhuis, Maxine Chernoff, Jeff Clark, Gillian Conoley, Catherine Daly, Lydia Davis, Connie Deanovich, Ray Di Palma, Mark DuCharme, Elaine Equi, Clayton Eshleman, Graham Foust, Forrest Gander, Barbara Guest, Garrett Kalleberg, Claudia Keelan, Carolyn Koo, John Latta, Ann Lauterbach, Joel Lewis, Laura Mullen, Sheila E. Murphy, John Noto, Bin Ramke, Heather Ramsdell, Stephen Ratcliffe, Donald Revell, Leonard Schwartz, Spencer Selby, Stephanie Strickland, Chris Stroffolino, Cole Swensen, David Trinidad, Susan Wheeler, C.D. Wright, John Yau, and many others. Issue #11, due out next month, includes work from over 50 contributors and features a symposium: ELLIPTICAL POETRY: NEW SCHOOL OR NEW SPIN?, with essays by Stephen Burt, Cole Swensen, Claudia Keelan and others. We would like to offer POETICS subscribers a unique introductory subscription package: 1 copy of AL&C's special double 10th Anniversary issue featuring over 90 writers (regular price $10) 1 copy of #11 due out September 1999 (regular price $6) 1 copy of #12 due out in 2000 (regular price $6) All of the above, a $22.00 value, for $12.00 postage paid. Please send checks to: AMERICAN LETTERS & COMMENTARY, INC 850 PARK AVENUE STE. 5B NEW YORK, NY 10021 Editors: Anna Rabinowitz Jeanne Marie Beaumont http://www.amletters.org/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 12:54:25 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Al Filreis Subject: Re: address query In-Reply-To: <199908241629_MC2-8233-CC09@compuserve.com> from "Adeena Karasick" at Aug 24, 99 04:29:01 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit lcabri@english.upenn.edu Al Filreis The Class of 1942 Professor of English Faculty Director, the Kelly Writers House Carnegie/CASE Pennsylvania Professor of the Year, 1998-99 | | Hi. could someone please give me the e-mail addresses for | Louis Cabri and Nicole Markotic | Thanks so much, | Adeena Karasick | adeena@compuserve.com | ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 12:56:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Linda Russo Subject: Bard symposium MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit July's Bard Symposium at the Institute for Writing and Thinking made headlines in last Sunday's Boston Globe: See "Meeting takes on challenge of teaching contemporary poetry" at http://www.boston.com/globe/sunday/learning/ If part of the goal of the symposium was to create access to the "difficult text," this certainly makes headway, providing from various participants various metaphors for what 'postmodern' poems are and how one proceeds with them, despite the fact that they are here called poems "that can be interpreted infinitely" and pitted against poems "that find commonly accepted meanings." Isn't infinity also a commonly accepted meaning? Whereas it's not solely about interpretation, as though that occurs without context. More appropriate terms of distinction might run something like: poems 'that come to mean through engagement with various, uncommon non-determined structures' and poems 'that engage meanings predetermined, pre-interpretted, and so common." ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 13:01:12 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Carter Subject: coinage/recurrency Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" { } mated recklessly (b)lessly back and forth the irrespective mate repeats reverse magnifications in the mist rewire inkwire your words engulfed inequity connote other than within repeat surfaces wristsurfed flakblistered coulds would be hood be glass row o' con go in the very mirror prepared nest narco-sisters re-enter the flare seize her for she was and is a sacred text relays rend the fabric of exchange-rape your ropes hurt they bite leave scars remind one of tire tracks delicately reduced in sighs the spanking new tortures 'n' musical machines powered by spatial crystal magnetics in core constant per ring(-moment rendered) current bunking practises fully e-quipped update download yanking the flower of curved renderings irritating recurrence reluctantly welcomed resumptions of routine proceedings caught once again en-jarred another word: the theme left wanting bereft a f(l)ight t' the heights yoke pen under(state) echoes ho brittle war ghoulishly long after having lost weight offered a bony kiss in the visage as punishment of the pleasureful purr sway the day under major/minor attack/assault the wearing down flattening blanding out of in the name of rebel without a pause t' deliver unto unjust justice Neo Key vent t' say up out the look 'n' sound o' the lace trace flex alterations shifted down gradual-like but not he same heights nor veils for the ticking tickling ripples rhyme suggest the as yet un-uttered greeting blessing farewell enter spur o' the hearse a curse well-taken issue t' wish 'n' swish all in a great sign of signs abuzz re-assist on the level a fin-fizzible century Zen ardent hollers flow-land redundancies flourish the door honey flew a pen undone into heartened currencies softened coin futility bronze flew eyes awaken wide the fuse full-blown re-set cycle psi t' the good all along the hatch-pole snatch from the benign Chaos just to make sure the uncertifiable gathering back up into undifferentiated company networks -- ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to crosscurrentseas-unsubscribe@listbot.com MSN Messenger Service lets you stay in touch instantly with your family & friends - Visit http://messenger.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 10:05:02 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tosh Subject: Re: Cid Corman / Mills Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I am not sure (and I maybe missing some of the posts) why Cid Corman is in a bad way - but wouldn't it be wiser if there was a specific grant - either in Japan or in America - and recommend him for that particular grant - than write to the ambassador to raise funds. The Ambassador maybe be able to suggest foundations, etc to raise money, but he doesn't have the power to give money. Also isn't there a major Japanese cultural award that gives out money for international artists? And if so, perhaps concentrate on sending letters, support for Corman to receive that grant/award ----------------- Tosh Berman TamTam Books ------------------ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 21:15:17 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Fewell Subject: Re: God Loves Fags MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 8/23/99 12:09:28 PM Eastern Daylight Time, pdurgin@BLUE.WEEG.UIOWA.EDU writes: << forwarding this from another list -- Phelps has got his work cut out for him -- pray to the rev you've come here in time to see this: www.godhatesfags.com Patrick F. Durgin >> what exactly was done to Phelps site? aaron keith ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 10:11:58 PDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Re: Cid Corman / Mills Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed There used to be an award from the NEA for something like a lifetime achievement that was directed precisely at situations like Cid's. I know that there was some discussion in the community about obtaining same for Larry Eigner, but Larry put the kibosh to it out of a concern that he might then lose his SSI income. I don't know if it still exists or not. I certainly agree on Cid's importance. I was VERY fortunate back in 1966 to read virtually all of the Origin collection that was then current and available in the SF State Library (having had Blaser as a librarian up to that moment had some real advantages!). In fact, the first critical writing I did in any form was a review of a reading of Cid's for the UC Berkeley student newspaper back around '69. _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 10:21:49 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tosh Subject: Re: Cid Corman / Mills Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Another thought! Why not approach the Lannan Foundation. They are known to give out liteary grants to specific writers who contribute...etc. Perhaps if someone can draft up a letter (with signitures from this list and others) and send it off to Patrick Lannan - that might be affective. ----------------- Tosh Berman TamTam Books ------------------ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 13:50:43 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Magee Subject: Re: AND TRY AGAIN In-Reply-To: <199908242024.QAA01253@interlock.randomhouse.com> from "Brian Stefans" at Aug 24, 99 04:22:02 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit According to Brian Stefans: > > No, I think you're right that Keston's not got the last word on FOH here, > and we've been bunging each other pretty good e-mails over it. But > regarding the poem, I didn't read the last quatrain as being an elaboration > on "Frank O'Hara" in the prior stanza, mostly because there's a comma and > not a colon seperating them -- had there been a colon, the next items would > have been a dependent list. (The title of the poem argues otherwise, of > course.) Right, your reading is the more exact, though, as you suggest, the "and so on" aspect encourages one to read through, draw connections, etc. More below. > But if you think of the final stanza as somehow > descriptive of the heirs of O'Hara, perhaps in Keston's idea even including > the Language poets, though maybe more surely latter New York school poets, > then O'Hara becomes -- due to other aspects of his writing as well, > including his synthesized and not-so-synthesized use of many continental > modernist methods that had their relevant links to politics of the left and > right -- a poet one can read politically (or let's say responsibly, as his > heroes were more responsible than political) without a reduction in > "pleasure" as folks like David Lehman would have it. Yes - and I would add that we shouldn't constrict the definition of political too much: true enough that one would be hard pressed to construct an over-arching critique of Capitalism out of O'Hara's work (to say the least!); but we can also be sure - damn sure - that O'Hara is interested in / dedicated to radical democracy, a dedication which, for instance, made him an early supporter of the Civil Rights movement. This is the O'Hara whom Baraka is talking about when he says that "Frank had a political sense," or, as he recently put it to me, O'Hara was "a sympathetic individual to all the just struggles in the world." Now that doesn't mean that one might not critique O'Hara's consumerism, say (Baraka himself does, pointing out that O'Hara couldn't manage to let go of the "crudely obvious joys of the corrupt West"), but it *does* mean that a tacit dismissal of O'Hara's politics or lack thereof is, as I said before, too cute and loaded with blindspots. (This issue may be more clear to those in American space where race/gender/sexuality tend to compete for our radicals' attention on fairly equal footing with class). This in addition to your good point that "It doesn't explain how the method works" any more than *The Last of the Avant Garde* does. We're in trouble, needless to say, when we comfortably accept shallow gossip in place of careful reading and thinking. O'Hara, as Ginsberg put it, was always a *deep* gossiper. -m. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 11:42:58 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tosh Subject: Serge Gainsbourg's Evguenie Sokolov Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable TamTam Books 2601 Waverly Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90039-2724 Tel: 323.661.8741 Fax: 323.661.3025 E-Mail: tosh@loop.com Wednesday, August 25, 1999 PRESS RELEASE TO CONTACT: Tosh Berman phone: 323-661-8741 fax. 323-661-3025 e-mail. tosh@loop.com Evgu=E9nie Sokolov by Serge Gainsbourg (1928-1991) ISBN 0-9662346-1-8 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 97-80957 Translated from the French by John and Doreen Weightman 103 pp. $17.00 =46iction/Music "Is there much difference between art and a fart? The recently republished 1980 novel by eccentric French torch singer Serge Gainsbourg wonders just that. 'Evgu=E9nie Sokolov' grew up ashamed of his chronic gas, but once he learns how to make gasograms, he becomes the darling of the art world. Sophomoric, giddy and insightful, this quick read proves just how well Gainsbourg understood the science of selling controversy and the troubles that come with being an enfant terrible." Neil Gladstone, Ray Gun (September 1999) Bookstore buyers - Serge Gainsbourg's Evgu=E9nie Sokolov & Boris Vian's I Spit on Your Graves (0-9662346-0-X) are available through : Small Press Distribution 1341 Seventh Street Berkeley, CA 94710-1409 800-869-7553 AK Press & Distribution P.O. Box 40682 San Francisco, CA 94140 ph:415.864.0892 fx:415.864.0893 As well as Ingram Book Company! ----------------- Tosh Berman TamTam Books ------------------ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 02:49:39 +0000 Reply-To: dillon@icubed.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Richard Dillon Organization: E L E M E N O P E Productions Subject: Re: context middleman rfp / lang ipo MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Barrett Watten knows the story on the critique of Stafford's deer by the side of the road poem. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 11:02:09 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Buuck Subject: Sounds Like Art / Harry Partch MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit For those in the Bay Area, Aug 28-Nov 7 - Yerba Buena Center for the Arts presents Sounds Like Art, a center-wide, multidisciplinary show featuring installations, performance, film & video. There will also be a Harry Partch tribute, with some of his instruments, & a performance by Newband of some of Partch's compositions. In the visual arts galleries, YBC presents Trimpin's "Conloninpurple," a seven-octave instrument/installation named in honor of the late composer Conlon Nancarrow; Matt Heckert's "Birds," part of his Mechanical Sound Orchestra, with 26 "musical" "bird"-sculptures, 5 feet high with 7 foot wingspans; Marina Rosenfeld's "Fragment Opera," a video-photo-3D-DJ-turntable- live performance opera-installation; and a selection of artist-made instruments guest curated by composer and musician Beth Custer. Custer will also be premiering her "Vinculum Symphony," featuring many of these invented instruments, & Marina Rosenfeld will be performing at the opening, this Friday Aug 27. Kronos Quartet & other contemporary music performances will be held throughout the exhibition, as well as two film-video series. Please call the Center for more details - 415-978-ARTS David Buuck Yerba Buena Center for the Arts 701 Mission San Francisco ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 15:38:15 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: Re: Cid Corman / Mills MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I couldn't find much in the way of specific information on awards made by the Lannan Foundation by searching the www; evidently they have no site of their own. I did, however, find a street address. Lannan Foundation 725 Arizona Ave., Suite 200 Santa Monica 90401-1734 (310) 395-1492 Nor was I able to find any mention of monies given for "lifetime achievement" and so forth at the NEA web site; apparently this award has been discontinued. The Lannan Foundation could be a good bet; I still think there must be some other federal money available, so wouldn't discount querying the ambassador - though I agree that my earlier suggestion to bombard him with mail was premature. I will write to the NEA this afternoon, which is a simple query; again, I would suggest that someone closer to the circumstance write a detailed letter to the Lannan Foundation and to the U.S. ambassador to Japan. It's too bad The MacArthur Fellows Program only accepts nominations from its designated nominators in the U.S.; as a matter of course, their names are not made public. MacArthur Fellows are given a 5-year unconditional income of $30,000 - $75,000 annually, plus comprehensive health insurance. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation seems to be one of the only major grant-making foundations that makes large gifts directly to individuals, rather than making them to or through institutions. Previous recipients include John Ashbery and Harold Bloom, Ann Lauterbach, Robert Hass, Jorie Graham, etc.; also Sandra Cisneros, Thomas Pynchon, Ishmael Reed. Interestingly, I notice that Stanley Cavell rec'd a fellowship at one time; as did Richard Rorty. Chris % Christopher W. Alexander % poetics list moderator ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 14:22:55 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ken|n|ing Subject: Re: God Loves Fags In-Reply-To: <736d454.24f49da5@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII The Phelps domain (godhatesfags) was bought out from under him by an organization known for webbased activism. It was then turned over to an organization whose site is entitled "godlovesfags.com" -- This was all done legally, though it's since been overturned. I think it's important for dangerous leaders such as Phelps to realize that the resistance pokes into various levels of activity. Thus, my enthusiastic post to the list. Patrick F. Durgin k e n n i n g___________________________________________________ a newsletter of contemporary poetry poetics & nonfiction writing _____________http://www.avalon.net/~kenning 418 BROWN STREET #10 IOWA CITY IOWA 52245 USA On Tue, 24 Aug 1999, Aaron Fewell wrote: > In a message dated 8/23/99 12:09:28 PM Eastern Daylight Time, > pdurgin@BLUE.WEEG.UIOWA.EDU writes: > > << forwarding this from another list -- Phelps has got his work cut > out for > him -- pray to the rev you've come here in time to see this: > www.godhatesfags..com > > Patrick F. Durgin > >> > > what exactly was done to Phelps site? > > aaron keith > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 05:28:24 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: jesse glass Subject: Re: Cid Corman / Mills MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear Tosh and everybody: Cid did get a Lannan award several years back, if I'm not mistaken, and yes, please put his name forward for any grants that you may be aware of. Unfortunately, grants, the last time I checked, are a bit of a crap shoot, and are particularly so for someone who has spent most of a long career living in a foreign country. As Cid himself told me this evening, the awards go to scholars and artists coming in to Japan for short-term residencies and are simply not available to permament residents. Admittedly, the letter writing to Foley is a long shot, but the primary reason why I suggested it (outside of Corman's obvious worthiness): is because in Japan "official recognition" by government or academic agencies often breaks the ice so that local (Japanese) sources of aid become available, and it is a sad fact that Corman has not received much--if any--help from Japanese arts agencies. Cid Corman, now in his 70's, lives in a tiny house in Kyoto. His wife Shizumi and her sister and brother run a shop called C & C's where they sell sandwiches, beverages and ice cream. This is their sole source of income. (Corman's income from his writing is negligible. In fact, Cid usually sends the checks to other writers as "grants" because it costs more to cash the check in a Japanese bank than what they're worth!) Business is not so good, and with everyone getting older, no pensions, and not much in savings the future looks iffy to say the least. Shizumi works seven days a week. Soon she will have to retire. After that, Cid says, he is not sure what they will do. -----Original Message----- From: Tosh To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Date: Wednesday, August 25, 1999 10:43 AM Subject: Re: Cid Corman / Mills >Another thought! Why not approach the Lannan Foundation. They are known >to give out liteary grants to specific writers who contribute...etc. >Perhaps if someone can draft up a letter (with signitures from this list >and others) and send it off to Patrick Lannan - that might be affective. > >----------------- >Tosh Berman >TamTam Books >------------------ > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 13:57:08 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tosh Subject: Re: Cid Corman / Mills Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" That maybe a local office (Santa Monica) of the Lannan Foundation, but I believe their main headquarters is in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I know of Cid Corman, but I don't know his work that well. So I suggest that someone who knows the work and history of Cid, should write the letter. Also Cid translated some Japanese classic literature, no? If that's the case perhaps he can get some funding from the Japan Foundation - which seems to do cultural activity. I don't know if they give money directly to individuals. Maybe just to non-profit organizations. The NEA would take forever! I don't know how strongly Mr. Corman needs financial aid - but I do think it would be best to direct funding from private foundations. Also someone should bring this issue up with Pen. As well as with Poets & Writers, Inc. The MacArthur Grant is fantastic. But it is a secret process. I guess one could ask a past winner. best, ----------------- Tosh Berman TamTam Books ------------------ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 17:09:43 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: Re: Stafford poem critique Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed The critique is in the September 1999 issue (cover story) of Harper's Magazine. Charles Simic, Paul Muldoon, Heather MacHugh, Donald Hall, and someone else whose name has suddenly slipped my mind each picked a favorite poem and then they critiqued each selection as a group. Simic chose the Stafford poem largely because it was plain and yet subtly ironic while leaving readers unsatisfied. There was also an O'Hara poem critiqued ("Lunch Hour," I think). Patrck Herron >Barrett Watten knows the story on the critique of Stafford's deer by the >side of the road poem. _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 14:15:52 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tosh Subject: Re: Cid Corman / Mills Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Thanks for Jesse Glass's update! I would still write a letter to Patrick Lannan, because basically he is Lannan Foundation. It is a private foundation and I think he can pull strings if he's interested in doing so. Perhaps Amb. Foley could pull some strings or at least arrange a 'letter' to recommend Cid to get some funding. I know it is very difficult time for small shop owners in Japan - especially in Kyoto which must be very expensive. The person to speak to is Karen Clark at Poets & Writers Berkeley. I think she can honestly give information about the possibliity of Cid getting grants and also additional information on organizations, etc. best, ----------------- Tosh Berman TamTam Books ------------------ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 06:07:29 +0000 Reply-To: dillon@icubed.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Richard Dillon Organization: E L E M E N O P E Productions Subject: Re: Cid Corman / Mills MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Assemble about $10,000.00 and buy NAVARRE (NAVR) on Nasdaq (Ed Dorn's favorite exchange) for an account opened at your local Fidelity Brokerage in the name of Cid Corman. But you have to do it soon. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 19:50:42 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: [ Wrote 91 lines ] [ Where poets live ] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII -== [ Wrote 91 lines ] UW PICO(tm) 3.5 File: zz Modified What does it mean to spread the following, one machine coupled to another, you are so breathless, Jennifer, reading across wires thrust from my throat to yours What does it mean that I am in the machine? Which machine, location, spread out across _this_ desktop and _this_ ISP and _your_ location, fragmented beyond belief I would declare, from the site of the mouth, from _your_ mouth, from the sight of you, from emissions from _your_ holes splayed out / sprayed out from which machine? [ Wrote 20 lines ] Ju2lu% b You have no mail. Ju3lu% ls Mail lisp thing News lynx_bookmarks.html tiny.world a mail trace calendar phoenix.hlp venom.irc fbw phoenix.irc volt.irc jobs tf zz lb tf-lib Ju4lu% Ju5lu% exit Connection closed by foreign host. {k:502} {k:502}What does it mean that I am in the machine? Which machine, location, bash: What: command not found {k:503}spread out across _this_ desktop and _this_ ISP and _your_ location, bash: spread: command not found {k:504}fragmented beyond belief I would declare, from the site of the mouth, bash: fragmented: command not found {k:505}from _your_ mouth, from the sight of you, from emissions from _your_ bash: from: command not found {k:506}holes splayed out / sprayed out from which machine? bash: holes: command not found {k:507} What machine? What machine? What machine? {k:508} What local looping? Oh Oh Oh, this is far too simple-dimple! "For I do write from my location, this desk facing this window, the tree in the distance, storm-clouds overhead, the shuddering atmosphere, radio going behind me, threatening weather, glimmers of lightning on the horizon "Your mouth, a conundrum "The problem of extreme distance, stretch of the cool body, lightning across beds and atmospheres, walking in the midst of storm-clouds, sites of infinite mouths "Philosophies of location, Russell at his writing-desk, Sartre at his cafe, Schutz by his window "What do you see at http://www.anu.edu.au/english/internet_txt/skye.jpg or these or other clouds "Ju6lu% netstat | grep sondheim tcp 0 0 panix3.telnet sondheim.dialup..1046 ESTABLISHED "Between one and another, between inscription and the fall, between fall and inscription "You are so breathless, Jennifer =========================================================== > > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 16:50:32 -1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Juliana Spahr Subject: now available: Catalina Cariaga's Cultural Evidence MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Catalina Cariaga cultural EVIDENCE Cultural Evidence is evidence that waves of the Asian Pacific can arrive upon the sandy shores of American English. Cariaga is a poet alert to written and oral traditions and what can be done to accommodate them in the many directions that American poetry can take. —Victor Hernandez Cruz This deeply thoughtful assemblage from Catalina Cariaga documents the search for cultural clues suggested by her title. She reveals her generational memory both circumstantially and directly, where in her childhood “the sea is a woman,” the barong (traditional shirt) is an ironic symbol, and Billie Holiday, grunion, and the exact procedure for citizen’s arrest—like a palimpsest—further define her point-of-view. Her calm speech fragments stand in the present, but step—with serious urgency—into this past, to trauma, the origins of identity, and her inherited love of language. This is a brave, innovative, and ultimately searing book. —Joyce Jenkins Catalina Cariaga is a pyrotechnic burst of light in the horizon of American poetry. Cultural Evidence is a worthy book of poems for all libraries and lovers of avant-garde literature. —Nick Carbo This first full length collection from Catalina Cariaga uses an experimental, documentary poetics for profound and moving culture observation. The poems here are critique, history, and personal anecdote. “No Tasaday,” for example, examines the controversy surrounding the Tasaday people of the Philippines (believed by some anthropologists to be a tribe but now generally considered to be a hoax). “The Mercy” mixes passages from an Ilocano and English grammar book, the Bible, and a mother’s memories of her departure from the Philippines. 88 pages, 6” x 8,” perfect bound $12 Published by SUBPRESS COLLECTIVE Subpress is a publishing collective of 19 members, each of whom has agreed to donate a fixed portion of their income for the next three years. Over those three years, each collective member will edit one book of poetry by an author of their choice. Also currently available: John Wilkinson's Oort's Cloud, $15 Upcoming titles include: Scott Bentley, Occasional Tables Daniel Bouchard, Diminutive Revolutions Brett Evans, After School Session John McNally, Exes for Eyes Prageeta Sharma, Bliss to Fill Caroline Sinavaiana, Alchemies of Distance Edwin Torres, Fractured Humorous Request to be on our mailing list if interested in forthcoming books. Books will be available through Small Press Distribution or direct from `A `A Arts. Order through email (js@lava.net) or direct from `A `A Arts: ____ $12 Catalina Cariaga, Cultural EVIDENCE ____ $10 John Wilkinson, Oort’s Cloud Free postage. Please make checks out to `A `A Arts. name ______________________________ address _______________________________ _____________________________________ `A `A Arts Department of English U of Hawai`i, Manoa 1733 Donaghho Street Honolulu, HI 96822 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 20:53:51 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maz881@AOL.COM Subject: Drugs MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hey Bill Marsh, I've been meaning to say great job on Steve Carll's Drug book (paper brain press). It even looks like an anti-drug pamphlet. And the poems are pretty far out. Steve is doing some great work these days. the other Bill ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 01:40:42 +0000 Reply-To: baratier@megsinet.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Baratier Organization: Pavement Saw Press Subject: Josh McKinney MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit If someone can supply his new california address or if you're out there, backchannel. Be well David Baratier ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 06:20:52 +0000 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Todd Baron /*/ ReMap Readers Organization: Re*Map Subject: Re: Cid Corman / Mills MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit the lannan stopped lit. awards a while back-- concentrating on visual arts and their collection. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 22:51:03 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Julie Johnson Subject: Upcoming book on Japanese Surrealism MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Here is a book review for an upcoming book on the Japanese Surrealists. It is already listed at Amazon, but really won't be available until November. Review is by Eric Selland. ___________ Book Review: Fault Lines: Cultural Memory and Japanese Surrealism , by Miryam Sas, Published by Stanford University Press, 1999, 240 pages, $18.95 paper, ISBN 0804736499. Possibly one of the most significant developments in scholarship in recent years is the willingness to view historical and cultural change in non-western countries on their own terms, rather than exclusively according to Western assumptions and expectations. We may be unable, as the phenomenologist Gadamer points out, to wholly lay aside our own cultural subjectivity, but we can at least listen to the voices of others as they express their thoughts in their own words. Most often in anthologies and biographical sketches the critical and theoretical writings of modern Japanese poets have been ignored. Few studies outlining the details of a particular poet’s thought as it effects actual poetic practice have been produced in this country other than outstanding exceptions such as Hosea Hirata’s work on the poetics of Nishiwaki Junzaburo. With Miryam Sas’ groundbreaking study we are given a clear, and even intensive sense of the Japanese Surrealists as very much modern intellectuals in an active and passionate engagement with the ideas of their time. The theoretical writings and developments in the thought of such notables as Takiguchi Shuzo, who introduced Surrealism to Japan through his translations of Breton as well as his own writings, are covered extensively. Moreover, Sas provides material here which leads not only to a deeper understanding of the thought behind 20th Century Japanese literary movements, but of the process of cultural transfer as well, in all its complexity and ambiguity. Sas notes in her prologue that “Japanese Surrealism is striking and important both for the specific questions it raises and for its exemplary place as an encounter between cultures, literary movements, and languages.” Sas uses the title of her book, “Fault Lines”, to denote how the introduction of Surrealism to Japan was, like the great Kanto earthquake which occurred around the same time, an occasion not only for literary “shock” and “rupture”, but a variety of creative reconfigurations as well. The book goes beyond a simple chronology of events as they occurred, and instead takes up specific theoretical and often deeply philosophical issues of concern to both French and Japanese poets, showing in great detail how the Japanese poets dealt with these issues within their own thought processes and poetic procedures. Both poetic works and theoretical writings of major Japanese figures such as Takiguchi Shuzo, Nishiwaki Junzaburo and Kitasono Katue, as well as Surrealist forerunner Hagiwara Sakutaro are quoted and examined in great detail. What is striking, as mentioned previously, is that those of us already familiar in general with the works of these poets and their lives are given a much stronger impression of them as brilliant and important thinkers of their time. Takiguchi was both a major theorist and translator of French poetry during his time, and an examination of his work, as well as that of Nishiwaki Junzaburo, brings up specific problems of language, meaning and translation, in regard to which both these thinkers had a surprisingly subtle and sophisticated understanding in a time when the linguistic and semiotic theories those of us in the fields of language and literature now take for granted were just barely being developed. We are also shown exactly how cosmopolitan Japanese poets were before World War II by the examples of the international activities of Kitasono Katue, who corresponded with Ezra Pound for many years, and Takiguchi Shuzo who shared his ideas with Breton during this time, finally visiting him in person in Paris in 1958. Sas provides us with a rich selection of samples of poems, theoretical writings and visuals in the appendix, for those interested in reading these in more detail in the original. One of the most important contributions this book brings to current scholarship is the rediscovery of two nearly forgotten women Surrealists -- Ema Shouko and Tomotani Shizue. These poets, along with other women experimentalists of the pre-war period, have been almost completely ignored until now, not only here but in Japan as well. A major anthology of Japanese Modernist poets published in the 1969 (Gengo Kuukan, edited by Ohka Makoto) includes virtually no women at all. Sas gives both these sensitive and intelligent poets the attention they deserve, opening the way for further research on their work, as well as other women experimental writers of the period. Sas’ interest in Japanese Surrealism and its influence on later experimental movements has led her in the direction of performance. Hence the epilogue on one of the most important post-war developments in the avant-garde in Japan, that of the Butoh, a new dance-performance art form created by Hijikata Tatsumi. Sas examines the writings and thought of the major artists here, including Ohno Kazuo, and the various ways in which Surrealism, as well as the Japanese Noh theories of Zeami have been adapted and interpreted. Throughout this study Sas makes an extensive use of the writings of Japanese poets, artists and critics, bringing needed attention not only to the better known modern poets such as Nishiwaki and Takiguchi, but hitherto ignored women poets such as Ema Shouko and Tomotani Shizue as well. In doing so we also run across other names not often seen in academic works, such as Yoshioka Minoru (possibly the most important postwar poet following in the steps of the Surrealists) and Nagata Koi, enigmatic experimental haikuist and essayist on philosophical subjects as well as the Butoh. A wealth of material appears here which should add significantly to the awareness in this country of experimental poetry in Japan during this century, and whet the appetites of students and researchers, leading hopefully to further fruitful work in this area. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 10:53:45 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: just a warning, re:Spark Comments: To: subsubpoetics@listbot.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" some of you may have been solicited by spark magazine recently, check out the sight but be warned: the links page at least has got more cookies than i've seen on any sight even Bob Holman's site stops at six or seven a page, i don't know if you're like me but i like to read a page while another is loading and all these cookies make it impossible to read and then you have to decide do you want to be offered up as a lure so that others may have surveillance placed on their surfing? Maybe they're naive, maybe i'm paranoid, but maybe they're hoping to get rich on your content. How do others feel about cookies being laid on your readers while they're cheering your anti-establishment works? forbidden plateau fallen body dojo 4 song st. nowhere, b.c. V0R1Z0 canadaddy zonko@mindless.com zonko ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 15:12:41 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: Re: just a warning, re:Spark Comments: To: subsubpoetics@listbot.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed cookies are not inherently evil. they are like any other tool. they are as bad as they are implemented. a hammer can indeed be used as a murder weapon, but a hammer can also be used to build a home. cookies are a method of what is called "state management." they are tiny files saved on your computer that tell a web site such info as what pages on that site you have already been to, what you have clicked on, etc., so that the next time you arrive at that site it can present you with something that is more up your alley (which depends upon the criteria for "up your alley" the programmers use - they can even use novelty as a criteria, always sending you something you haven't seen). you can get to the info you need faster, and the web site people can better predict what you like. in this way we are talking about people making informed decisions about what to give you via very fast means. if it helps an anti-establishment person get to anti-establishment info faster, then that's pretty good. it can also help an e-publisher secure the fiscal support it may need to survive by providing better targeted banner ads, etc, thus making their advertising space more valuable. OK, now we're getting to the evil stuff. getting compromised for advertising sales is a problem, obviously, poets spending their time as captialists, etc. but the biggest problem perhaps with cookies is this potential for surveillance you refer to. that potential depends somewhat upon whether the cookies used by a site are anonymous or not - whether the info on the cookie has enough info to reveal your identity in any way. many sites employ anonymous cookies so who you are is not attached to you. other sites do not use anonymous cookies, and shame on them. of course, there is always the possibility that even an anonymous cookie can be used as a clue as to who the owner really is. besides, sureveillance is only effective if people BELIEVE AND FEAR they are being surveilled, and then only in a puritanical context. If you fear being watched, and you feel that your life includes some hidden "sin" or "transgression", then the people who manipulate that fear or possess info about your "abomination against 'god and country'" can pull your strings like a puppet. you've got to feel a need to hide before this type of control can be effective. Anyone read "Discipline and Punish" by Foucault? The text has many problems, politically speaking, such as its inability to admit the existence of true concentrated hierarches of power, but it has some good analysis of Bentham's prison model and the way modern power depends upon people believing they are being watched for possible transgressions against the state. It does not matter whether they are being watched; power functions most efficiently when no surveillance actually happens while people simultaneously believe that sureveillance happens. So perhaps an anti-establishment stance would be, go ahead and watch! See if I give a fuck! If everyone has something to hide, then what can you do to me? No one cares! Unfortunately American puritanism makes such a stance difficult. As far as paranoia goes, yes you are being watched. After all, the internet was invented by DARPA (US Defense Advanced Research Projects Assoc., the special forces hi tech research group, where the US military concentrates its "intelligence"), so this whole internet thing was deployed in part to do exactly that - watch you, collect info on you. The real question is, do you let that collection of info about you control your life in any way? Do you give that surveillance (and transitively, the possibility of surveillance) power over you? Admittedly I sound as if I suggest playing a dangerous game of chicken, risking such head-on collision with the violent hidden monarchs, but we outnumber the establishment. they, whoever they are, fear the loss of control and prepare for it constantly. their fear, the fear of losing control of that which is greater than them, seemingly guides their every action. as far as slowing down page loading, that sounds like plain ol' bad web design. I haven't seen the site. : P Patrick Herron >some of you may have been solicited by spark magazine recently, check out >the sight but be warned: the links page at least has got more cookies than >i've seen on any sight even Bob Holman's site stops at six or seven a page, >i don't know if you're like me but i like to read a page while another is >loading and all these cookies make it impossible to read and then you have >to decide do you want to be offered up as a lure so that others may have >surveillance placed on their surfing? Maybe they're naive, maybe i'm >paranoid, but maybe they're hoping to get rich on your content. How do >others feel about cookies being laid on your readers while they're cheering your anti-establishment works? forbidden plateau fallen body dojo 4 song st. nowhere, b.c. V0R1Z0 canadaddy zonko@mindless.com zonko _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 15:50:46 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII o she left home suddenly she followed a man to a strange and foreign land she lived with the man and wandered among eucalyptus and palms strange birds assailed her tears beneath unfamiliar constellations two suns, two moons, two earths there were years of drought, years of plenty trees, symmetrical, they dwelt in peace her ancestral land, tales and ballads meadows, ponds filled with beauty, wonder-fish, splendid mollusks they were breathless, coral, lambs, wolves and great staghorn new customs and clothing, lives of no regrets a single meteor a song _________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 15:51:22 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Corrections MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII o Corrections and kills, deletions everywhere, configuration files, initiation files, resource control files, segmentation faults, core dumps, useless hard- drive activity, all of this in a single directory, slackware linux, on a single hard-drive, on a non-descript compaq presario desktop not meant for these sorts of things - which then filter, leak, into the texts, cor- rupt them with meaningless symbols and {k:7} prompts going nowhere - the texts, my writing, my very own, suffers as a result - I try to include my failures here - not so much inhabiting the machine as mutual devouring - I'm in and out simultaneously - play both sides of the bridge - fear of water - the whole history of the world can be read in these three words - _the corrupted file_ - I do my best to bring you complete works, things of beauty, coherent, lovely beyond belief - dis/ease and dis/comfort beckon - there are cracks in the artifice, it's as if excretion were returning at long last from banishment - I can't hold on that long - there's always the probe into the machine - there's always the return of the machine to the probe - both flesh and silicon - all over, it's the way this universe was made - but in these writings - too much emphasis on error, too many symbols, as I've said, too much corruption, not enough analysis - think of it as frustrated writing - the _act_ of it a frustration - writing through the debris - writing degree one, say, not zero, that is, writing in the proto- cols - did I say filtering, leaking into the texts? - there's dissolution and I'm ashamed of it (the system falters, flicker-rate of the screen shows up uneasily, migraine straight ahead), yes, ashamed - there's noth- ing to be proud of, this domination - Aug 26 13:17:32 nikuko sendmai- l[158]: EAA15303: to=, ctladdr= (0/0), delay=2+09:08:27, xdelay=00:00:11, mailer=esmtp, relay=diana.sfsu.edu. [130.212.10.239], stat=Deferred: 451 ... Domain must resolve Aug 26 13:17:39 nikuko sendmail[158]: EAA15309: to=, ctladdr= (0/0), delay=2+09:07:59, xdelay= 00:00:05, mailer=esmtp, relay=rufus.comms.unsw.edu.au. [149.171.96.100], stat=Deferred: 451 ... Your hostname is unresolvable _________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 14:44:58 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Owen Hill Subject: Re: Serge Gainsbourg's Evguenie Sokolov MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I highly recommend the Serge Gainsbourg book. Thank you, Tam Tam, for having the good (?) taste to publish it. Owen ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 20:08:31 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: A H Bramhall Subject: social conformity vs Cid Corman MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cid Corman needs financial backing so the answer this the poetry community reaches is to write letters? well that's a complicated enough reaction. (Great Pan Is Dead!). wouldn't money, the famous greengrab stuff, be more effective? not to fetishize money but the figurative BUCK is being passed here when a real one could be passed to someone who needs it. if that's the point here: I'm beginning to wonder. is my logic too deep? statements about community have resounded here recently but that's just yack for the cheap seats. community means exclusive neighbourhood, the usual who's in/who's out bullshit power structure. the fuckin Boston scene, the fuckin SF scene, the fuckin Philly scene. all just regional fuckin mugwumpism. you don't know community from horseshit so name the social club something else. you're waiting for someone important to talk to you, some authority, that's all. well Cid Corman already did. and, by the many accounts given, he is and has been a generous man, yet the response to his predicament is to look for a government or semi govt teat for him to suck on. charity begins with the government... sounds like those poli sci courses wore off. rather than barricading yourself in the administration building again, try sending him money. if, as I say, that's the point of this exercise. $$$Allen Bramhall$$$ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 19:31:56 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Leddy Subject: Re: context middleman rfp / lang ipo In-Reply-To: <199908260411.XAA08885@ux1.cts.eiu.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Jordan, Hall's referring to (though not quoting directly from) Bob Perelman's comment on this poem in a talk in the Talks issue of _Hills_. I think the talk is titled "The First Person." Michael >> can anybody supply the crucial omitted bibliographical data for >> the comment in re: William Stafford's "Traveling Through the Dark" as >> mentioned by Donald Hall in the Sep 99 Harpers Forum "How to Peel a Poem": >> >> Hall: The comma with "still" bothers me, because if the fetus is still how >> do you know it's alive? Alive still? How does he know it's alive? I read >> once from the speech of a Language poet who ridiculed this poem because it >> was William Stafford saying, "I'm a nice guy. What a nice guy I am." >> Jordan Davis ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 17:06:20 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kyle Conner Subject: Highwire Reading!! Comments: To: aharon@compuserve.com, allison_cobb@edf.org, ALPlurabel@aol.com, amille1@MCCUS.JNJ.COM, amorris1@swarthmore.edu, Amossin@aol.com, apr@libertynet.org, avraham@sas.upenn.edu, banchang@sas.upenn.edu, bcole@nimbus.ocis.temple.edu, Becker@law.vill.edu, BMasi@aol.com, bochner@prodigy.net, BStrogatz@aol.com, Chrsmccrry@aol.com, coryjim@earthlink.net, Cschnei978@aol.com, daisyf1@JUNO.COM, David.Gran@thegarden.com, dburnham@sas.upenn.edu, dcpoetry@mailcity.com, dcypher1@bellatlantic.net, DennisLMo@aol.com, DROTHSCHILD@penguinputnam.com, dsilver@pptnet.com, dsimpson@NETAXS.com, ekeenagh@astro.ocis.temple.edu, ENauen@aol.com, ErrataBlu@aol.com, esm@vm.temple.edu, ethan@info.si.edu, evans@siam.org, Feadaniste@aol.com, fleda@odin.english.udel.edu, Forlano1@aol.com, gbiglier@nimbus.ocis.temple.edu, goodwina@xoommail.com, hstarr@dept.english.upenn.edu, hthomas@kutztown.edu, insekt@earthlink.net, ivy2@sas.upenn.edu, jenhopeg@fcis.whyy.org, jennifer_coleman@edf.org, jjacks02@astro.ocis.temple.edu, JKasdorf@mcis.messiah.edu, JKeita@aol.com, jmasland@pobox.upenn.edu, JMURPH01@email.vill.edu, johnfattibene@JUNO.COM, josman@astro.ocis.temple.edu, jvitiell@nimbus.ocis.temple.edu, jwalker@odin.english.udel.edu, kelly@COMPSTAT.WHARTON.upenn.edu, Kjvarrone@aol.com, kmcquain@ccp.cc.pa.us, kristing@pobox.upenn.edu, ksherin@dept.english.upenn.edu, kzeman@sas.upenn.edu, lbrunton@epix.net, lcabri@dept.english.upenn.edu, lcary@dept.english.upenn.edu, leo@isc.upenn.edu, lessner@dolphin.upenn.edu, lisewell@worldnet.att.net, llisayau@hotmail.com, lorabloom@erols.com, lsoto@sas.upenn.edu, lstroffo@hornet.liunet.edu, marf@NETAXS.com, matthart@english.upenn.edu, Matthew.McGoldrick@ibx.com, melodyjoy2@hotmail.com, mholley@brynmawr.edu, michaelmccool@hotmail.com, miyamorik@aol.com, mmagee@dept.english.upenn.edu, mnichol6@osf1.gmu.edu, mollyruss@JUNO.COM, mopehaus@hotmail.com, MTArchitects@compuserve.com, mytilij@english.upenn.edu, nanders1@swarthmore.edu, nawi@citypaper.net, odonnell@siam.org, outocntxt@earthlink.net, putnamc@washpost.com, QDEli@aol.com, rachelmc@sas.upenn.edu, rdupless@vm.temple.edu, rediguanas@erols.com, repohead@rattapallax.com, ribbon762@aol.com, richardfrey@dca.net, robinh5@JUNO.COM, ron.silliman@gte.net, rosemarie1@msn.com, Sfrechie@aol.com, sm1168@messiah.edu, stewart@dept.english.upenn.edu, subpoetics-l@hawaii.edu, susan.wheeler@nyu.edu, SusanLanders@yahoo.com, swalker@dept.english.upenn.edu, Ron.Swegman@mail.tju.edu, tdevaney@brooklyn.cuny.edu, tosmos@compuserve.com, twells4512@aol.com, upword@mindspring.com, v2139g@vm.temple.edu, vhanson@netbox.com, vmehl99@aol.com, wh@dept.english.upenn.edu, wvanwert@nimbus.ocis.temple.edu, wwhitman@libertynet.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cats & kitties, here it is, the much-anticipated schedule for our dynamic, bombastic SECOND SEASON!!! Hold on to your hats. H I G H W I R E READINGS AT HIGHWIRE GALLERY '99 Fall Schedule: 9/4 Justin Vitiello / Edmund Berrigan 9/18 Kristin Prevallet / Matt Hart 10/2 Allison Cobb / Dave Simpson 10/16 Jena Osman / John Colleti 10/30 Mark Wallace / TBA 11/13 Heather Star / Alan Gilbert 11/20 Heather Thomas / Carol Mirakove 12/11 Edwin Torres / Mytili Jagannathan (with afternoon talk at Writers House given by Edwin Torres) Saturdays, 8PM, 139 N. 2nd St., Philadelphia BYOB "Antiseptic vessel whisper the great underground antinomy" ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 22:26:47 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Leonard Brink Subject: Inscape #7 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit INSCAPE #7 features poetry by: Elizabeth Robinson Avery E.D. Burns Jerrold Shiroma Jono Schneider Keith Waldrop Maxine Chernoff Rosmarie Waldrop Craig Watson Sean Hansen Listaferians can have this for the low, low price of just $4, first class postage paid. Please make checks payable to Leonard Brink Instress P.O. Box 3124 Saratoga, CA 95070 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 15:16:43 -0400 Reply-To: hs2@acsu.buffalo.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Eleni Stecopoulos Subject: Klingon language query MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit If anyone knows of any texts, excerpts, poems (Christian? Darren?), Hamlet in the original Klingon -- that are available on the web, please backchannel. I need something for my composition class's first translation project. Thank you. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 10:16:19 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ann Vickery Subject: Query re Tom Ahern and Michael Lally Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Dear Poetic Listers, I was wondering if anyone who might have a contact address for Tom Ahern or Michael Lally could let me know. It would be greatly appreciated. Sincerely, Ann Vickery ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 13:34:43 -0400 Reply-To: joris@csc.albany.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: FW: Please forward worldwide Comments: To: "poetryetc@listbot. com (E-mail)" , subsubpoetics@listbot.com, british-poets@mailbase.ac.uk MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit -----Original Message----- From: Mark Clement [mailto:MClement@bruderhof.com] Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 1999 10:39 AM Subject: Please forward worldwide To: News Editor For Immediate International Release Contacts: Pam Africa 215-476-8812 Clark Kissinger 718-797-9044 Death Warrant for Mumia Abu-Jamal imminent say Pennsylvania Officials Harrisburg, PA. August 24, 1999. State officials say Governor Ridge may sign a death warrant for Mumia Abu-Jamal at any time, according to a recent article in the Philadelphia Daily News. Once a death warrant is signed Mr. Jamal will be effectively silenced. He will be moved from a regular death row cell into "Phase II", where highly restrictive conditions of imprisonment will be applied: 1) No property allowed in cell - no access to legal papers. 2) No phone calls except with the Warden's permission, call by call. 3) Visits only by immediate family. 4) 24 hour camera surveillance in cell. 5) No clothes provided for prisoner's possession. May be left naked in cell for hours. 6) Visits with attorneys only under surveillance by staff/guards. Meanwhile the public relations war surrounding his case continues. An astonishing claim by Maureen Faulkner, widow of the police officer Mr. Jamal is accused of shooting, was outlined by Linn Washington in a recent Philadelphia Tribune column. According to her claim, Mr. Jamal turned and smiled at her in the courtroom when her husband's bloodstained and bullet-ridden jacket was exhibited to the jury during his trial. The only problem with her claim is that Mr. Jamal was not in the courtroom the day the jacket was exhibited, proven by trial transcripts. In fact, he was excluded from most of his trial and was not allowed to represent himself. Mrs. Faulkner has maintained that Mr. Jamal has no support in Philadelphia for a new trial. However, among the notable citizens of Philadelphia calling for a new trial are: Chaka Fattah, Reverend Henry Wills, Henry Nichols (President of 1199), John Street, Professor Tony Montero, Professor Sonya Sanchez, State Senator Vincent Hughes, State Representative Harold James, Reverend Sheppard, and many others. Buzz Bissinger (in Vanity Fair) and Sam Donaldson (on ABC's 20/20) recently championed Philip Bloch, praising him as a man of courage for coming forward to reveal that Mr. Jamal had "confessed" to him in 1992. They were unaware that Mr. Bloch wrote to Mumia in 1993 expressing his belief in Mumia's innocence. Furthermore, Bloch paid $20 in 1995 to have his name added to a newspaper ad listing those who believed Mumia was innocent. The ad appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Harrisburg Patriot-News and declared "We care about Mumia because there is compelling evidence pointing to his innocence." Mr. Bissinger and Mr. Donaldson bought into Phil Bloch's lie. Buzz Bissinger has been the primary publicist for current Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell, District Attorney when Mr. Jamal was tried and sentenced to death in 1982. Rendell is now contemplating a run for Governor and it is widely believed that if Mr. Jamal were to receive a new trial at the Federal level evidence would emerge that would seriously damage Rendell's political career. Governor Ridge: 717-787-2500 Mayor Rendell: 215-686-3000 Phil Bloch: 717-845-7217 --30-- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 14:23:47 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: list stats MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit My apologies to those inaccurately represented; for details as to the who and how of exclusions, consult previous "list stats" messages in the list archive at . Chris -- Country Subscribers Australia 13 Belgium 2 Canada 43 Finland 1 Germany 2 Great Britain 22 India 1 Ireland 5 Italy 1 Japan 7 Netherlands 1 New Zealand 14 Poland 1 Singapore 1 Spain 2 Sweden 4 Switzerland 2 Thailand 1 USA 636 Yugoslavia 1 Total number of users subscribed to the list: 762 Total number of countries represented: 20 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 14:24:46 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: Welcome Message somewhat revised MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Welcome to the Poetics List & The Electronic Poetry Center .sponsored by The Poetics Program, Department of English, College of Arts & Science, the State University of New York, Buffalo /// Postal Address: Poetics Program, 438 Clemens Hall, SUNY Buffalo, NY 14260 Poetics List Moderator: Christopher W. Alexander Please address all inquiries to . Electronic Poetry Center: =3D Contents =3D 1. About the Poetics List 2. Subscriptions 3. Submissions 4. Cautions 5. Digest Option 6. Temporarily turning off Poetics mail 7. "No Review" Policy 8. The Electronic Poetry Center (EPC) 9. Poetics Archives at EPC 10. Publishers & Editors Read This! ___________________________________________________________ Above the world-weary horizons New obstacles for exchange arise Or unfold, O ye postmasters! 1. About the Poetics List With the preceeding epigraph, the Poetics List was founded by Charles Bernstein in late 1993. Now in its second incarnation, the list carries over 750 subscribers worldwide, though all of these subscribers do not necessarily receive messages at any given time. A number of other people read the Poetics List via our web archives at the Electronic Poetry Center (see section 9 below). 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Some announcements circulated through Poetics and the EPC have received a noticeable responses; it may be an effective way to promote your publication and we are glad to facilitate information about interesting publications. ------------------- END OF POETICS LIST WELCOME MSG ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1999 03:35:03 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: jesse glass Subject: Re: social conformity vs Cid Corman MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear Allen: You've shouted the subtext of my postings. Thanks! Letter writing was proposed in addition to... Also, please keep in mind that a certain delicacy in tone would be appreciated by all concerned. Jesse -----Original Message----- From: A H Bramhall To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Date: Friday, August 27, 1999 10:58 AM Subject: social conformity vs Cid Corman >Cid Corman needs financial backing so the answer this the poetry community >reaches is to write letters? well that's a complicated enough reaction. >(Great Pan Is Dead!). wouldn't money, the famous greengrab stuff, be more >effective? not to fetishize money but the figurative BUCK is being passed >here when a real one could be passed to someone who needs it. if that's the >point here: I'm beginning to wonder. is my logic too deep? statements about >community have resounded here recently but that's just yack for the cheap >seats. community means exclusive neighbourhood, the usual who's in/who's out >bullshit power structure. the fuckin Boston scene, the fuckin SF scene, the >fuckin Philly scene. all just regional fuckin mugwumpism. you don't know >community from horseshit so name the social club something else. you're >waiting for someone important to talk to you, some authority, that's all. >well Cid Corman already did. and, by the many accounts given, he is and has >been a generous man, yet the response to his predicament is to look for a >government or semi govt teat for him to suck on. charity begins with the >government... sounds like those poli sci courses wore off. rather than >barricading yourself in the administration building again, try sending him >money. if, as I say, that's the point of this exercise. $$$Allen Bramhall$$$ > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 12:00:27 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tosh Subject: Re: social conformity vs Cid Corman Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" In regards to Allen Bramhall's e-mail letter I presumed that he sent Mr. Corman some money. Personally I don't have money to send. It is nice if a govt. agency sends Mr. Corman thousands of dollars, or even a foundation (whose business is to give money out) to Mr. Corman. Other then that,perhaps someone on the list can either give out the address of Mr. Corman to send funds to, or the best way to send funds to Mr. Corman without losing the currency difference. ----------------- Tosh Berman TamTam Books ------------------ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 14:35:42 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: address query In-Reply-To: <37C4DCC4.7725@earthlink.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" contact info needed ASAP for Cecilia Vicuna...thanks ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 15:55:55 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Kirschenbaum Subject: BOOGLIT’s NYC Beat: "Rachel Says," Oliver and Durand, 8/26/99 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Rachel Says: BOOGLIT’s NYC Beat, 8/26/99 by David A. Kirschenbaum, editor Akilah Oliver and Marcella Durand Belladonna new poetry ETC. reading series at Bluestockings late night on last Thursdays, mostly, each month It’s the first night of Rachel Levitsky’s new reading series, Belladonna, at the newest of must-go-to NYC lit. sites, the near-3 month old Bluestockings women’s bookstore down on Allen Street (#172, 212-777-6028) in what’s still called the lower east side. I’m the first man to arrive, and go about my business, scanning the titles and the discounts table. There’s a great selections of zines and poetry--I picked up “the East Village INKY no. 4: The continuing adventures of a 34 year old mother & a ratty-haired 3thumbed little sprog who just turned 2 in New York City’s EAST VILLAGE,” a holographed zine chock full o’ comics (1/4 letter, horizontal, 40 pages, $2 cash or check payable to Ayun Halliday/ 406 E.9th St. #7/ NYC 10009/ order online at www.hipmama.com—“Buy this” section—inky@erols.com/ www.neofuturists.org/ny/ah/ah.htm); “kurt cobain was lactose intolerant conspiracy zine,” a different spin on the late-Nirvana frontman’s stomach pains, and the heroin he used to numb them. “What’s up with the name spelling? Was ‘Kurdt’ just too much like ‘curd?’” (digest size, 16 pages, $1 cash to: kurt cobain was lactose intolerant conspiracy zine/ P.O. Box 170612/ SF, CA 94117-0612); “59 cents,” a medley zine outta the pacific northwest, where it’s distributed free, filled with reviews, poetry, and collages (letter, 20 pages, $3ppd to: Alison Dahmen, editor/ 59 cents/ P.O. Box 19806/ Seattle, WA 98109, alyrocker@earthlink.net); “13th Moon,” a used copy (for a buck) of one of the early issues—1973—of this women writers’ journal, featuring Adrienne Rich and Enid Dame; “Pawdy-do Sank-ee oon-Twah,” a limited edition—mine was #19—of a beautifully put together—sienna rice paper cover, topped with hand-painted gold rectangle and filled with ragged edge guts pages—collaborative poetry chapbook, with work from Bill Kushner, Susan Maurer and Tom Savage. (6x9”, 7 pages, single-sided, $3, no contact info); and “The Beautiful Worthless: a book-length poem in progress,” one of three poetry chapbooks available by Ali Liebegott; it reads like a modern-day “Summer in the Lakes, 1843” by Margaret Fuller, as Ali blends letters, journals and poetry into this nice work (digest size, 48 pages + cover, $5 to: Longshot Press/ 272 53rd St. #1/ Brooklyn, NY 11220). Rachel’s energy is inspiring. First met her at Naropa big top in 1998, where we found out we didn’t know each other from back east, but we knew everyone each other knew, both in Albany and NYC. Back in BoCo she ran a reading series too, at the Left Hand anarchist Bookstore, if I recall. And now, back in Brooklyn, she’s been kicking out words, and chapbooks, at a fever clip. At last month’s BoPoFest, I traded Booglit #5 and some old chapbooks to one of her many publisher’s, Peter Ganick, for “The Adventures of Yaya and Grace,” (digest size, 48pages + cover, $7, ISBN 0-937013-93-5, Potes & Poets Press/ 181 Edgemont Avenue/ Elmwood, CT 06110-1005/ potepoet@home.com), a double-take on women I heard first at Fall Cafe in Brooklyn last autumn, where she tore up the room—gently—with her political verse. From “Reconciliation”: “A bunch of them found religion, saying it was good for the children. Once Grace heard someone say it made them feel safer like some sort of cheap insurance policy, maybe it wouldn’t really do anything but psychologically speaking.” And after the watchers trickle in—Anselm Berrigan; the recently-married to Atticus, Chrisney, Indiana’s favorite daughter, Brenda Coultas: “It was a real hillbilly wedding, with a small New York invasion”; Sean Killian with a women I don’t recognize; Situations Press’s kind Joe Elliot; Eleni Sikelianos, to be joined later at Lansky’s Lounge, by Laird Hunt; Julie Patton; Prageeta Sharma; Karen, who I met at BoPo; Joanna Fuhrman, back to NYC from Seattle, and with a Hanging Loose book in the out-soon hopper; and Marcella’s husband, the artist Rich O’Russa—running on St. Mark’s time which became Naropa time and back, again, and then a few minutes on Bluestockings by behind-the-register Kathy, and Rachel takes the mic. Rachel says she’s energized by having a women’s only reading in a women’s bookstore, but says she doesn’t have anything to say about that, yet. Then she adds, the reading’s scheduled for 9pm, because, “I didn’t want it to be like an afterschool special.” And a 15-minute long, women’s only, open mic follows, five readers. The first reads a well-intentioned, but poorly executed, piece on clitorectomies and the second reader, a young woman with short, black spiked hair, a bar through her lower-lip, lover not-10 feet away, reads two pieces, one for her friend Jennifer, and a second, about the PhD student who introduced her to things African-American, “but reading too much had bound her heart too tightly with words.” And then, after three more on the signup sheet trod to and fro the mic, Poetry Project program coordinator Marcella Durand follows Rachel’s creative introduction. Marcella reads a few from her second chapbook (“Lapsus Linguae,” being the first, digest size, 16 pages, $5, Situations Press, no contact info given, May 1995), “City of Ports: Numbers 1-25” (digest size, 32 pages, $5, Situations Press, no contact info given, Spring 1999), but unlike the bands who support the new record by doing 10 of the 11 tracks, she only reads two, interested in sharing her newer work rather than hustling the wares—a damn shame. Here’s a piece from #23: “Lights of /many levels shine thru gritty/ windows, emanate from an amazing/ space of sea-travel around islands/ lost and shadowed in time & memory;” She reads from a Fifth Century AD Chinese book on cities and metropolises. “I got it at a yardsale and I’m so excited about it,” she smiles and raises the book, proud. Then its into her new series, “Machine into Water,” many of which she read last month at BoPoFest. Here’s a few lines from MiW #3: “toast, roast, fry, outdoor cookout”; “Bifocal lensed loosely”; and “corpse of engineer/ the engineering of spins.” She skips from three into four and five, then skips 6-8 and heads to 9. There’s some hardcore repetition on typing in one MiW: “hundreds, type, typing” then back to hundreds and then to “60 words a minute.” And she finishes the cycle with MiW#28, “which is pretty much what I’m up to.” And after a 15-minute long five-minute break—St. Mark’s time, remember?—Rachel introduces Akilah Oliver. Akilah’s one of those folks I’ve been around the past seven years, flitting in and out of conversations on the Arapahoe Avenue Naropa campus, buttressed by the University of Colorado’s football team’s practice field. Though I’ve seen her read, years ago, I always manage to miss her with the Sacred Naked Nature Girls, the performance arts collective she founded back in Los Angeles. Insanely enough, it’s only her first book she’s out behind tonight, “the she said dialogues: flesh memory” (digest size, perfect-bound, 88 pages + cover, $10.95, ISBN: 0-9658877-5-8, Snakeproof Press/ Erudite Fangs Editions, no contact info given, July 1999). And, a hand-painted Kathy Acker sign behind her, she shares an old Naropa tale—the school where she currently is an adjunct faculty member—of Acker being pursued by Naropa, and demanding a Harley Davidson motorcycle to come teach. “Right, Eleni?” and Eleni quietly yells back, “And she got it, too.” As Akilah motions to behind-the-register Kathy and says, “So Kathy, next time I want a Harley.” And she cuts decisive into some printed out text still looking for published homes. “Should you tell them that you and Pat smoked a joint ’cause it was an earthquake and it seemed like a good way to celebrate a disaster.” Then another new one, “Admit it: Under the Naropa Big Tent,” a bouncy, fun-filled take on the clubby atmosphere and ID politics abounding throughout the “university. Make sure you call it that now,” she mock introduces. “Well, they say, join our club, it’s bigger.” And then onto the new book. “Black people in Compton call Mexicans white/ No I cry, the white people are all dancing on Soul Train”; “You expose the truth, your pussy a confession booth”; “I thought she would look nice, dressed in her father’s battered face”; “You must have disremembered”—as ears prick up to this language play away from forget; and, of a friend, “My mother died giving birth to me, with no emphasis” but she “said Disneyland with certainty.” And afterward we poet slow-shuffle to Lansky Lounge, avoiding Tonic’s cover charge, and Julie Patton and I eat kosher food (yeah!) and we all alcohol consume—one $9 Vodka Gimlet for me, which, thankfully, got this lightweight plenty lit-up—until 1:30am slow disintegration. Be Good, David _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 17:22:50 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Philip Nikolayev Subject: India Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I noticed that one person on this list in in India. I'm interested in hearing from you. Could you drop me a line? Thanks, Philip Nikolayev ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 17:08:13 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christopher Reiner Subject: The Gentle Instructor Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit A glitch at the LITPRESS web site has prevented some people from accessing Nick Piombino's "The Gentle Instructor"--a wonderful piece of poetry (with illustrations by Toni Simon) from his book Light Street. I have now fixed the problem, and you should have no trouble getting to the piece at http://www.litpress.com/instructor.html It's well worth a look. --Chris Reiner ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 23:42:51 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jill Stengel Subject: sf, ca event listing MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit synapse: second sundays at blue bar --presents-- a reading with lisa kovaleski and standard schaefer september 12, 2 p.m. blue bar is at 501 broadway, at kearney, in sf enter thru black cat restaurant, same address admission is $2 extraneous roses by lisa kovaleski and waltzing the map by standard schaefer, both new from a+bend press, will be available at the reading. Lisa Kovaleski lives in San Jose with her husband and two children. She co-edits the journal syllogism, and is a co-founder of Manifest Press. extraneous roses (a+bend press, 1999) is her newest chapbook. Originally from Texas, Standard Schaefer now resides in Los Angeles, where he co-edits Rhizome and Ribot. His first full-length book, Nova, is a winner of this year's National Poetry Series, and is forthcoming from Sun & Moon Press. His newest chapbook is Waltzing the Map (a+bend press, 1999). _______________________________________________ please backchannel if you want more info or books... thanks-- jill stengel a+bend press ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 23:49:08 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: revised version, Our Future Love - Comments: cc: Cyberculture@cmhcsys.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII == Alan Sondheim Our Future Love "It would be quite scary if someone were really inside a personal compu- ter, don't you think? Anyone who thinks that I am "non-existent" because I am a virtual idol may believe that I exist only in the personal computer or in the world of computer graphics. But those who think that Kyoko Date is someone they can relate to may believe that I am like a pen pal people used to have when it was cool to have pen pals. Kind of like a creature living in people's hearts." (Kyoko Date, Date Kyoko, interview) Japan, the _source_ of the Kyoko Date, Date Kyoko emission, her music dif- ficult to find now, three years later - Kyoko Date, Date Kyoko, created 1996, trans/lated recently into Korea, project of HoriPro (http://www.horipro.co.jp), entertainment/animation, virtual models (http://www.elite-illusion2k.com), Rebecca, Sharon Apple (for example http://www.usagichan.com/AX96Sharon/), virtual idols (see http://www.tcp.com/doi/seiyuu/books/virtual-idol/), anime (see Helen Mc- Carthy & Jonathan Clements, The Erotic Anime Movie Guide, Overlook, 1999), TokyoPop (http://www.tokyopop.com), various distributions - energy in the sound, labor in the specificity of gathering backgrounds and foregrounds; I began losing myself in the midst of the thick otaku fandom, passing through the PlayKiss (remove the dolls clothes with your computer mouse - even Kyoko Date has been hacked to this) or Kamishibai sites (see http:// otakuworld.com and http://otakuworld.com/shibai/kamifaq.html), animation or anime that anyone can do, get their work online. (Think of the audien- ces involved, the demographics for erotic anime, for male-male bonding for female viewership, for teenaged males, teenaged females, etc.) Nothing troublesome in all of these, to the extent that what resolves, resolves through plot / narration, slotted or extending categories. I myself work through Nikuko, Meat-Girl, (among others) an avatar or 'emanation' I have created, who has no specific image, no _appearance_ but texts operable within Net protocols, or deep in operating systems; Nikuko seems all too real, almost viral or hacking - but then she doesn't appear alone, I'm in the background maneuvering the _language._ (See Nikuko texts below for examples, also http:// www.anu.edu.au/english/internet_txt for background information, etc.) It plays, this language, to the _ascii unconscious,_ a term I use to de- scribe the effect of text in net sexuality, paradigms of control and being controlled, language playing, insinuating itself in the midst of uncon- scious drives; if Date runs through fandom and cds/ cd-roms, Nikuko runs through psyches, deliberately without resolution - it's the difference between Noh and Godot. Nikuko raises questions of epistemology (to what extent does the viewer/reader comprehend both her knowledge, and that of Nikuko, across the board, within the site of her writing) and ontology (to what extent is she an addictive to the writer or the reader - to what extent are any of us virtual or projections - to what extent do we reside within the imaginary). Think of Daishin Nikuko, Meat-Girl Big-God who is created and creates by virtue of the performative (word, programming, im- age as well); think of Date Kyoko, whose ontological status heralds a host of virtual characterologies (as well as characters) - the _shuffling_ of signs on and offline. In the future-now, we are properly prepared already for the _disappearance,_ not only of the sign, but of the _thing_ itself. Virtual idols have no beginnings and endings; every gesture, every glimpse is a deliberate creation - there are no unguarded moments, no paparazzi. Following the _path_ through the virtual, say, through the Elite model agency, backing up into announcements all across the Net, touching down on IRC and MOO/MUD bots, intelligent agents, anime characters like Sailor Moon, ongoing manga series, the intensified digital imagery of Mariko Mori's photographic and video artworks, my own broken language texts, prosthetic speaking/hearing/seeing/touching devices - following the path which splits, turns back on itself, contradicts itself, turns _wayward_ and _contrary_ as well as _noisy_ - it might be a gendered path, losing gender on the way - following the path - which becomes a _field of possi- ble worlds_ competing through capital, positioning, distribution modes, interventions - it becomes clear, that is to say, it becomes clearer - _there's no object here_ whatsoever - you might as well follow the path of the imaginary - Kyoko Date, Date Kyoko, singing across the fabricated landscape, in and out of the studio (see Date Kyoko, DK-96 Love Communication cd-rom) - her movements like _haywire_ at times against blank backdrops, there's also the Brooklyn Bridge (once real or digital or retouched, always already eternal, placed within a _noiseless and purified_ system of digital pro- tocols) - you might as well follow _her_ always already receding, used up by the capital which created her - there's a moment she offers herself to you - She offers herself, the _wire-frame_ image-model in which her clothing is _hollowed_ against the frame - this hollowing exposing the _interior of her breast and vaginal areas_ - a system of gridded projections, intro- jections, Kyoko Date, Date Kyoko, _from the inside-out_ - this is criti- cal, this _procurement_ - think of her as a _skin_ (just as there are say Windows 98 skins, Real Audio skins, skins everywhere that can be attached to other programs, giving a look to the look) - With the virtual you're _in her skin_ literally, you can wrap the wire- frame around yourself, play with it - in PlayKiss you can find a naked Kyoko Date, Date Kyoko, as if the body itself has been hacked - there's no end to it, these mirrors - returning the body to its image, perhaps re- turning the image to the phenomenological field of the body itself - its extensions - And, this can't be emphasized enough - all this beneath the sign, within the sign of capital, splintered, turned in on itself as the abstract accumulation/surplus of money is transformed into surplus sexuality, girl and woman, entertainment - TokyoPop for example with its magazine, online store - think of all of this as the libidinal economy resident in SUPER- STRUCTURE SUPER-STORE, shape-riding input - think of MONEY as LIBIDINAL UNITS - injections of perfect skin, perfect love - no longer does the Kristevan clean and perfect body tend towards fascism, all those horrors - it's now the post-AIDS safety-zone - What's fascinating is that all of this is happening NOW, not in a future, however close, not on the level of fantasy, but within boys' and girls' bedrooms, computers on desks or tables, off in the corner, computers in the living-room (such as it is) or kitchen, computers everywhere, and just as anime and pornography entwine at numerous junctions (all across the playing-field), so does pornography become an intrinsic part of everyday life - except that masturbation fantasy now (equally intrinsically) in- volves the Other, the parceled body [ what might be seen a reconfigura- tion for example of the texts of J. G. Ballard - and why have academic approaches to the Net repeatedly emphasized the _cyberspace_ metaphor, ignoring these other manifestations which begin, say, in the work of Yoshitoshi if not earlier in Hokusai - begin even earlier wherever the imaginary or uncanny are found? a phenomenological analysis of PlayKiss would produce reams of relevant information ] - THIS IS THE TRUE LOVE OF THE THIRD MILLENNIUM AND SOON YOU WILL SEE MACH- INES LOVING ONE ANOTHER WITHOUT IMAGE, WITHOUT KYOKO DATE, DATE KYOKO: MACHINES OF PURE BLISS FOR ONE ANOTHER, LUBRICATED PISTONS (IN THE FORM OF BYTES) SLIDING INTO LUBRICATED CYLINDERS (IN THE FORM OF BYTES): what I have repeatedly called _linkages_ and _couplings_ as the processes of the future. A COUPLING is a concatenation or conjoining, such as, for example, A becomes part of BCD (in other words, A BCD -> ABCD) such that any change to A does not produce a change in BCD - they're loosely joined (think of objects on a shelf or Sartrean seriality). A LINKAGE is a con- junction of terms, such as, for example, A becomes part of BCD (A BCD --> ABCD) such that a change in A results in _some_ change in BCD (ABCD as a machine or computer protocol suite of interlocked sub-programs or links in a chain). Just as digital images are accessible bit by bit, each independent of the other (the apparent organic whole only in the eye of the viewer/creator), so one might speak (even now) of a postmodern decoupled future of fast- forward change, the slidings or probings of digital domains in competi- tion. The ontology of organism itself is at stake, the whole becoming in- finitely modified, manipulable, without loss; Kyoko Date, Date Kyoko, cannot die, but project DK-96 can be _shelved,_ only to be revived perhaps elsewhere and/or at a later date. She appeared almost out of nowhere, in spite of the video-games, dating cd-roms (an ideal girlfriend on your computer), anime, manga, girlhood boyhood dreams, and the massive Japanese idol production industry; she made that one song, _a real hit,_ she gave an interview or two, several images were released, and there was no follow-up; she disappeared quickly - after the webpages, fanpages, newsgroups, breathless nighttime mastur- bations, just as I 'fell in love' with Anne Frank, symbolic or penetrat- ing my dark side, after the fact, after her death, what safety. There are all sorts of transitional objects (teddy-bears, blankets, parents), both comfort and safe, and _partial,_ filled in - life is a quest for filling- in, conjoining the vulnerable body to safety-safety. What better than heroines in death, fairy-tale princesses, virtual idols, inaccessible worlds synchronically (X, who lives in a parallel universe) or diachron- ically (Y, who lived and died, tragically, a long long time ago). IF I COULD HAVE ONLY MET KYOKO DATE, DATE KYOKO, WHAT WE WOULD HAVE BEEN ABLE TO ACCOMPLISHED, OH OH OH MY DARLING - -- --- ---- ============================================== NIKUKO TEXTS [ I use several 'avatars' in my work - Nikuko, Jennifer, Julu, Alan, and Travis. These interact with me, with various applications such as Internet Relay Chat, and with email lists; the texts I produce are sent to two lists, Cybermind and Fop-l (fiction of philosophy), which I co-moderate. The avatars raise all sorts of issues, and give me the opportunity to ex- plore the practical and theoretical aspects of 'virtual subjectivity.' Be- low are several representative texts; these usually are presented along with more abstract works analyzing the issues involved. ] 1. Partition My name is Nikuko. You have asked me to type my name in this space. This is a space which will become other. This is an other space; you will wit- ness the partition. The partition breathes here. You will witness its breathing. What is this but a barrier, foreclosing one space to another, one time to another? Consider lag, it's loss, something almost too sweet, irresolute... Across this divide I cannot come to you; the message or the missive or the missile is solitary, a trajectory. There is no turning back because there is no 'back' and no Kehre, only the monad with its dull dead eyes. In order to reach me, other partitions, and other me's. In order to call me, the construct of a calling, an other words. Absolute breaks like exclusive-or or the Sheffer stroke. Thrown elsewhere. The world is not redundant; there are tools whose function remain unknown, usable once. Every partition remains virginal, every hymen intact. Gifts are runners, transmissions; they are carriers of packets of modernization, orientations of cognitive domains, resemblances of customary greetings and the prolif- eration of bodies. Think of partitions as ignoring, devouring the gift - no acknowledgment, an eternal syn attack on the host of the real. Partition What I have written is the bifurcation - this division among us, this par- tition. Liking is a matter of fit, as David Bohm said to me, and prog- rams fit as well as the world of words. The monad is a blind monitor. The body closes itself off to the other even in the midst of the bearing of gifts. Consider the world a bricolage, making-do, heuristics against the presumed and presumptive tyranny of universal laws. Beyond core-theo- retical approaches, nothing. On the other side, the chaotic domains of the implicate order. This time the real displays itself, as if there were movements, actions, as if there were potential. Potential is always the imaginary of a field, 'such-and-such' might have been in this future an- terior of possible worlds. [ Written through a program, 'ask,' with a simple graphic interface: first partition a group of statements, second partition opinions rela- tive to 'liking' them, entries alternating between partitions. ] _________________________________________________________________________ 2. Beauty Excitement at Oita.Com.Jp! Welcome to nikuko, and Linux 2.2.6. We hope you'll have a good time here, and wonderful fun. Contact nikuko@oita.com.jp if you are having any problems! oita.com.jp login: root ### the Wonderful Slackware Linux-Owner Root! Password: ###the Beauty Word allowing full-run of lovely fields! Linux 2.2.6. ### Beautiful new Kernel running in amazing DOS directory! Last login: Mon Aug 23 01:53:29 1999 on tty1 ### oh so fun alone! You have mail ### and I wonder what Beauty-System is telling me! ###Oh Wondrous Fortune Appearing Here! The Moon is Waxing Gibbous (86% of Full) ###[ HOW EXCITING! ] {k:13}ls 100 ###lntarn$l karnals, bhckats pf mpdhlas, thra$ds $nd prpcassas, sagmant$tlpn julu newj.cmd ###f$hlts $nd cpra dhmps:my bones are processing, running full-strength across boards and memories:llnhx 2.2.6.::attributions Devour Blue Nattributions Brought Forth through lntarn$l karnals, bhckats pf mpdhlas, ###lynx_bookmarks.html trace bio mail enfoldingthra$ds $nd prpcassas, sagmant$tlpn f$hlts $nd cpra dhmps! minppp ###[ MANY MANY BEAUTY FILES! ] {k:1} who loves me nikuko.oita.com.jp!root tty1 Aug 23 01:54 ###she does! she does! close(1) = 0 munmap(0x40008000, 4096) = 0 _exit(0) = ? ________________________________________________________________________ 3. Radio You say, "I am your radio Budi-Buda" Nikuko is your radio radio radio Alway Luvly Swolen Beli Want for You to Look in Him Contents: iBud It's already open. You say, "I am your radio radio radio" Nikuko is your radio radio radio Nikuko Brooding Buti or Buda / Pest She is awake and looks alert. Carrying: Budi Brawned MassIve Tissu Hunger for Yu to Be Swallow Contents: Bud Brawned MassIve Tissu Hunger for Yu to Be Swallow Contents: Bud take what? I don't understand that! You already have that! It's already open! Brawned MassIve Tissu Hunger for Yu to Be Swallow Contents: Bud You say, "Budi Budi Budi" You say, "radio radio radio radio radio" Nikuko is your radio radio radio You say, "Nikuko is your radio radio radio radio radio" You say, "radio radio" I see no "radio" here. You now have radio with object number #695 and parent generic thing (#5). You drop radio. You hug radio in a warm and loving embrace. You kiss radio sweetly You say, "radio radio radio" Nikuko says radio radio radio Nikuko is your radio radio radio radio radio You say, "Budi Budi Budi" Is your radio. _________________________________________________________________________ 4. AUTOPROBE MECHANISM IN X: FAILURE ACROSS THE BORED, TUESDAY NIGHT OUT: [FVWM][Read]: trying to read system rc file /*There isn't any, Nikuko! /bin/sh: xfilemanager: command not found /* It's not installed, Jennifer! X connection to :0.0 broken (explicit kill or server shutdown). /* Application crashed for lack of resources, Julu! CRASH! Vertical speed = -118.589912 ft/sec /* Stupid Stupid Nikuko! Lateral speed = 100.000000 ft/sec Final Score: 0 /* I told you so, Nikuko, "says Jennifer" CRASH! Vertical speed = -118.589912 ft/sec /* Stupid Stupid Jennifer! Lateral speed = 100.000000 ft/sec Final Score: 0 /* I told you so, Jennifer, "says Nikuko" can't load tile font xmahjongg /* You'll have to fuck me now, "says Julu" /bin/sh: xboard: command not found /* It's not installed, Jennifer-Julu! X connection to :0.0 broken (explicit kill or server shutdown). /* You're just gonna have to fuck me now, Jennifer-Nikuko, "says Julu" [FVWM][Done]: <> Call of '/usr/openwin/bin/olvwm' failed!!!! /* You'd rather go to that CRASH-LAND TOKYO bar, "says Nikuko jealously to Jennifer, waiting for a reply, Julu down on all fours, restarting 'fvwm2' instead" _________________________________________________________________________ 5. Jennifer and Julu Playing The Unknown Game Attempt to grapple or ungrapple Death Star Galleon (s0): h Death Star Galleon (s0): boarding the Flying Dutchy (f0) Flying Dutchy (f0): boarders from Death Star Galleon repelled Death Star Galleon (s0): killed in melee: 0. Flying Dutchy: 0 Death Star Galleon (s0): boarding the F6ying Dutchy (f0) Death Star Galleon (s0): killed in melee: 0. Flying Dutchy: 0 Repair (hull, guns, rigging)? hull! no, rigging! guns! Avast heaving! Message? Jennifer, are we yet sailing? Flying Dutchy (f0): "ailing?" Death Star Galleon (s0): boarding the Flying Dutchy (f0) Flying Dutchy (f0): boarders from Death Star Galleon repelled Death Star Galleon (s0): Yay! Avast! Hip Hooray! Flying Dutchy (f0): quarterdeck bulwarks damaged Flying Dutchy (f0): boarders from Death Star Galleon repelled Death Star Galleon (s0): killed in melee: 0. Flying Dutchy: 0 yes!! Flying Dutchy (f0): "!!" killed in melee: 0. Death Star Galleon (s0): "What in God's-Name are you yelling?!!" Repair (hull, guns, rigging)? Yes! Yay! Avast! Hip Hooray! Avast heaving! Flying Dutchy and Death Star Galleon heave and heave and heave! Death Star Galleon (s0): boarding the Flying Dutchy (f0) Flying Dutchy (f0): boarders from Death Star Galleon repelled Death Star Galleon (s0): killed in melee: 292!!! Flying Dutchy: 0 Avast heaving!(f0): "sage"ng the Flying Dutchy (f0) Repair (hull, guns, rigging)? e Avast heaving! and says Julu, "Are we sailing, Jennifer?" Flying Dutchy (f0): "ailing, Jennifer?" Sail ho! (range 1, (computer)) Death Star Galleon (s0) Spanish Corvette off the starboard bow. Yay! We're sailing sailing sailing! Message? We're coming for you, Jennifer!!! Uh oh! ________________________________________________________________________ 6. Fragment I am incredibly wealthy, says Nikuko, "I don't have to work at all," and this gives me the time to write my brilliant texts." Oh Nikuko, says Julu, "I do not begrudge" you the freedom you have to create your work, which is close to genius and needs nourishing both psychological and economic!" "Ah, Jennifer," says Nikuko, "I do hope you feel exactly in this way as well as Julu," I am this spirit of perfect writing!" I am incredibly lucky to know you, says Jennifer, "of course you have my full love and support" in everything you write and do." __________________________________________________________________________ ==== > Alan Sondheim, sondheim@panix.com, 1-718-857-3671 (US), 432 Dean Street, Brooklyn, NY, 11217 USA < ==== ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 23:37:38 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Patrick F. Durgin" Subject: Bosquet / West Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I am seeking to contact Oscarine Bosquet and Bobbie West. If anyone is able to pass along contact information, would appreciate hearing from them. Patrick F. Durgin k e n n i n g a newsletter of contemporary poetry http://www.avalon.net/~kenning 418 Brown St. #10, Iowa City, IA 52245, USA ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1999 13:16:48 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Patrick F. Durgin" Subject: Kenning publication announcement Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" As summer draws to a close and the air gradually cools, I think it's high time I send off the summer '99 issue of Kenning. If you are bound to receive a copy in the coming week, you are either a contributor or a subscriber (or some other sort of co-conspirator). You know if you fit these criteria and you know if you don't. For the latter, let me invite you to snap up a copy before they're gone (see ordering information at the end of this message). And if you'd rather not receive publication announcements from Kenning in the future, reply to the e-mail address at the end of this message and say so: you will be taken off the mailing list. Kenning Vol. 2, No. 2 Issue #5 Summer 1999 C O N T E N T S Poetry: Lyn Hejinian Peter Neufeld Rachel Blau DuPlessis John M. Bennett Peter O'Leary E. Tracy Grinnell Brian Kim Stefans Brent Cunningham Jon Cone Michael Basinski Gene Tanta Michael Gottlieb Kristin Prevallet Clark Coolidge Poetics: Michael Magee Reviews: Sarah Mangold's *Blood Substitutes* by Daniel J. Beachy-Quick *Snake Hiss* compact disc by Patrick F. Durgin Editor's Note: "Agent and Agency" 89 pp. / $5.00 Purchase a sample copy by sending a check or M.O. for $5.00 payable to the editor, Patrick F. Durgin, to 418 Brown St. #10, Iowa City, Iowa, 52245. Subscribe to receive 2 issues ($9.50) or 4 issues ($19.00) by sending the appropriate amount to the same. Subscribers receive their issues in loose-leaf as well as a hand-printed portfolio suitable to hold several (about 5) numbers of the newsletter. For more information on most every aspect of the newsletter, see the Kenning website http://www.avalon.net/~kenning The autumn/winter '00 issue of Kenning is entitled "Cunning: a descriptive checklist of tentative politics" and is collaboratively guest-edited by myself, Renee Gladman, Jen Hofer, and Rod Smith. See the website for more information. Thanks and best wishes for the coming season: Patrick F. Durgin k e n n i n g a newsletter of contemporary poetry http://www.avalon.net/~kenning 418 Brown St. #10, Iowa City, IA 52245, USA ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 29 Aug 1999 02:18:02 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Julie Johnson Subject: Duration Press Announcements MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Duration Press now has a new home, with some exciting new stuff... Our new address is www.durationpress.com The August 28th Small Press Announcements page is up. The next listing will be for September 11th. All presses, journals, etc., who wish to have their publications listed, please go to the announcements page @ the Duration website, & follow the instructions. An in-progress version of the first book of our ongoing out of print book archive is also available @ the archives section of the website. The anthology _Code of Signals_, first published in the early 80's & edited by Michael Palmer, features work by Palmer, Charles Bernstein, Claude Royet-Journoud & Emmanuel Hocquard, Michael Davidson, Fanny Howe, & Steve McCaffery, among others. As stated above, this archive is still in the works, but will be finished very soon. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 29 Aug 1999 05:41:37 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ramez Qureshi Subject: NYC Bookstores MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear all: could anyone name for me bookstores in NYC where I could find a book like Cole Swensons _Try_, or any which carry periodicals like _Sulfur_ Thanks in advance, Ramez Qureshi ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 29 Aug 1999 05:54:11 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ramez Qureshi Subject: address query MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit does anyone have e-mail addresses for David Buuck? Clayton Eshelman? Ed Foster? Please back-channel Thanx in advance, Ramez Qureshi ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 29 Aug 1999 22:21:10 +0000 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Todd Baron /*/ ReMap Readers Organization: Re*Map Subject: work MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Horn Tooting: There's a nice magazine on-line with work by myself, Leslie Scalapino, Mark Axlerod and others. Onyx (from Chapman ) @ www.chapman. edu/comm/english/onyx edited by Bill Crandall. Odd--still not used to the internet as page. These things got out and such. Any comments on the "use" of internet magazines? I still like the stuff on the coffee table best. What happens to the rest? Todd Baron ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 29 Aug 1999 23:28:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: face MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII =-= face there are facial scrubbings, sloughed skin, foetal membranes ,, drawn down over nose and mouth, palls over eyes, burst bubbles, waters, afterbirths, miscarriages, thinned to blown egg-white consistency ,, */ what makes you yearn for me for me for me breathing through albumen, caught against glues held taut across the ears, lymph-tympana, silked, almost sweet and globular ,, stumped arms, legs moist and glistening, phantom flailed limbs soaked in mucous ,, */ i so do do do want to understand to understand understanding through the throat, black bile, bruised abdomens, cauterizations ,, yellowed scars, dipthongs and pallid scabs, little stories on distended skins ,, */ i see those boys boys boys boys and their milky legs, boys and their milky legs ,, swollen salivary glands, mouth dribbles whitened against pale contusions, marks of non-memory, dried tears, fleshed-peeled from torn corners of tumescent eyes ,, mumblings beneath surfaces, through the nostrils, what, nothing, what, what ,, girls' blood, clotted tastes suffused on paler skin, ruptured dreams gone long ways back ,, coming broken to you, i, i, i, i am sick of that letter, of any letter, of any ,, */ does it bother you that letter of any, or a father or a mother? of you, what a bother ,, closed up remnants, edged with juices, designs and vomits ,, and and brocades, and a long way back ,, and and and drenched clothes, and a longer way ,, and a way and a longer way ,, */ you mentioned that letter of any letter of any? back back back ,, */ can you elaborate on that and look at me? _____________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 29 Aug 1999 23:44:15 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Al Filreis Subject: Stein's Balto house Comments: To: Poetics MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Someone wrote me (because I have Stein material on my web site) and mentioned Stein's house in Baltimore at 215 East Biddle Street. I don't know how many Baltimore-area folks are on this list, but it may interest them and perhaps others in the region to know that the house is being renovated by a fellow (Bill Leroux) who hasn't decided yet what to do with it. There is some notion of making it a place where readings would take place. Below is part of a message sent to me about it (I know nothing further): | The house at 215 E Biddle is in a neighborhood known as Mt. | Vernon/Belvedere. Actually, my friend owns the home (and has for about 35 | years) but does not live in it. It has not been occupied since the | 1970's. | | Presently he's restoring it to a single family home but is not sure | what he will do with it. (Might make a great place for a reading..) If | you or someone you know would like more information or possibly to see it, | please feel free to contact the owner, Mr. Bill Leroux, at 410-539-5593 | (best time to reach him is before 9 a.m.) I think also, he may be | interested in going to Yale to see if a photograph is there. | --Al Filreis ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 14:22:21 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: Upcoming book on Japanese Surrealism In-Reply-To: <000a01beef8c$62a08720$ae2d5aa6@u4q7n2> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII The review of Fault Lines is quite interesting. Thanks to a brief mention on the List, i have been reading john Solt's really excellent and useful Shredding the Tapestry of Meaning, a biography of Kitasono Katue, which includes a number of fascinating translations... On occasion i would take issue with Solt on certain ideas vis-a-vis western poetry, and on occasion his understanding of just how meaning and form function in poetry seems a little simplistic; but basically it is a dynamite book. The Solt book led me in turn to several works on, and translations of, Nishiwaki (mentioned quite a bit in the Fault Line review).. Now both these japanese poets identified themselves at certain key moments with "surrealism"--but i strongly recommend Solt's book for a rich and detailed discussion of how that related to French and other surrealisms.....Basically, his point is that the Japanese were taking what they needed, and often had very little sense of what the French were intending and doing (and didn't always necessarily care)....so that "Japanese surrealism" is a rather specific entity, not necessarily that close to what we usually mean by the word... (i sure can't judge the accuracy of this; but Solt's discussion is compelling and fascinating...and it does square with the sense one gets from various translations of Kitasono and Nishiwaki..) My personal feel, coming to this work in ignorance and lacking the language, is that Solt's tranlations of Kitasono are extraordinary and of great interest; i frankly find Nishiwaki far more conservative and less striking, as rendered by the several translators i've seen.... In any event, the recent emergence of this stuff is very exciting.... Mark P. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 11:32:56 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Kane Subject: Kristen Prevallet teaches poetry to third graders Comments: To: writenet@twc.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII T & W features poet Kristen Prevallet's exercise based on incorporating a "magic spellbook" into the teaching of poetry writing. This exercise was inspired by two examples in the T&W book Luna, Luna: Creative Writing Ideas from Spanish, Latin American, & LatinoLiterature. Adapt her ideas for your own classrooms, and check this page for further updates. http://www.writenet.org/fwir_kprevallet.html ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 14:27:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: social conformity vs Cid Corman In-Reply-To: <004d01bef020$4e062d80$96950fce@tenacre> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII This seems a pretty lame response to the Corman thread. Does this poster have any idea how much extra disposable income the various folks on the thread HAVE? i guess he has plenty, from the assumptions he makes. But most *poets* really don't got much.... On Thu, 26 Aug 1999, A H Bramhall wrote: > Cid Corman needs financial backing so the answer this the poetry community > reaches is to write letters? well that's a complicated enough reaction. > (Great Pan Is Dead!). wouldn't money, the famous greengrab stuff, be more > effective? not to fetishize money but the figurative BUCK is being passed > here when a real one could be passed to someone who needs it. if that's the > point here: I'm beginning to wonder. is my logic too deep? statements about > community have resounded here recently but that's just yack for the cheap > seats. community means exclusive neighbourhood, the usual who's in/who's out > bullshit power structure. the fuckin Boston scene, the fuckin SF scene, the > fuckin Philly scene. all just regional fuckin mugwumpism. you don't know > community from horseshit so name the social club something else. you're > waiting for someone important to talk to you, some authority, that's all. > well Cid Corman already did. and, by the many accounts given, he is and has > been a generous man, yet the response to his predicament is to look for a > government or semi govt teat for him to suck on. charity begins with the > government... sounds like those poli sci courses wore off. rather than > barricading yourself in the administration building again, try sending him > money. if, as I say, that's the point of this exercise. $$$Allen Bramhall$$$ > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 15:15:24 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino In-Reply-To: <19990825210943.66572.qmail@hotmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Ah, all this talk of the stafford poem, and of journalists magazines writing about poetry. Has anybody seen (i'm told it's also in new issue) Tina Brown's TALK magazine, which has yet another attack on Laura Riding? c ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 14:22:10 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Subject: The Semantic Rhyming Dictionary / Poetangles MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit this came to the administrative account. Chris -- From: Poetangles@aol.com Date: 8/29/99 2:23 PM +0000 Found an interesting site, perhaps useful to some: The Semantic Rhyming Dictionary http://www.link.cs.cmu.edu/dougb/rhyme-doc.html ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 14:23:36 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Subject: The Public World/Syntactically Impermanence / Scalapino MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit this came to the administrative account. Chris -- From: Thos J White Date: 8/29/99 5:22 PM -0700 This new book by Leslie Scalapino is available from Wesleyan University Press (Orders at University Press of New England: 1-800-421-1561; e-mail University.Press@Dartmouth.edu) or Small Press Distribution (//www.spdbooks.org; 1-800-869-7553; e-mail orders@spdbooks.org). The Public World/Syntactically Impermanence, $17.95. (152 pages) ISBN 0-8195-6379-X. "Scalapino's work is sui generis, profoundly original. In The Public World/Syntactically Impermanence, she synthesizes the various aspects of her writing into a powerful and gripping combination of critical writing and post-genre 'creative' writing. Her practise of, and reflection on, narrative are breathtaking." -- Pierre Joris "Scalapino's claim 'Poetry in this time and nation is doing the work of philosophy -- it is writing which is conjecture,' is startling in its boldness. Her conjecture opens things up and moves us to places we may have been but hadn't seen before. Her 'scrutiny' is striking and distinctive." -- Paul Rabinow From Publishers Weekly Review: "...her third book of essays and hybrid poem-plays. While the book is divided into two sections -- with eight 'essays' in the first and three longer 'works' in the second -- this distinction is rendered highly permeable by Scalapino's resolutely non-normative, or non-academic at least, prose style. An intricate weave of cross-references from text to text heightens the interconnectedness of the book, and allows the nomadic -- and dedicated -- reader to describe a sort of productive rebus throughout the book. The book is also surprisingly engaging, as Scalapino discusses the early foundations of Zen (Nagarjuna's Seventy Stanzas) and the works of some of her peers, particularly Philip Whalen, Susan Howe and Robert Creeley. In their 'demonstration of no-procedure' ('Deer Night' is a 'total rewriting of The Tempest and King Lear), the essays indirectly suggest a comparison between the temporal indeterminacy of many Zen texts and Gertrude Stein's notion (from William James) of the 'continuous present,' and aim to resist easy cultural absorption. Agrammatical title and all, this is critical writing as restless as it is beautiful, in which poetry is boldly proclaimed as constituting 'society's secret interior.'" ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 22:23:44 +0000 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Todd Baron /*/ ReMap Readers Organization: Re*Map MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > Has anybody seen (i'm told it's also in new issue) Tina Brown's TALK > magazine, which has yet another attack on Laura Riding? > > c it doesn't feel so much as an attack as a gossipy bio that TALK does as its bread n' but. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 22:23:01 +0000 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Todd Baron /*/ ReMap Readers Organization: Re*Map Subject: Re: social conformity vs Cid Corman MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I would, sadly, say that the responses to Cid's place in the world have less to do with Cid than with those making the responses. Poets have little money ---from their poetry-- there are a few folks who have been able to get into the game because of family comforts--etc. Also: so many are teaching right now that perhaps a seris of readings---if Cid wants'em--would bring him some much needed income. But--als again-Cid hasn't chimed in here--so it's not of it really about Cid! ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 14:26:04 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Kirschenbaum Subject: Cid Corman Fundraisers Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Mark Prejsnar wrote re: AH Bramhall: > >This seems a pretty lame response to the Corman thread. Does this poster >have any idea how much extra disposable income the various folks on the >thread HAVE? i guess he has plenty, from the assumptions he makes. But >most *poets* really don't got much.... > What we do have on this list, are hundreds of people who know how to make beautiful books, write wonderful words and, who even know how to get them sold. What Allen's talking about is not $$ necessarily, but a community rising up to take care of one of its own in a way only it would know how, not waiting for the other to do it. A simple way would be to do some sort of book, ala Nice to See You: Homage to Ted Berrigan, for Cid Corman. Has this ever been done? If not these could be used as fundraiser, with limited board-bound, lettered and signed copies going for extra scratch. The list is also filled with people who know how to put together and promote wonderful events, many of which raise good chunks of money. Friends at the UofAlaska raised $5K on one event last year, which was then matched by a donor, and there have to be more out there than this. Why not do readings, or concerts, or raffles of handsigned books. Any number of creative things can be done. We do have sweat equity, and though the grant avenues should be used till the grantwriters fingers bleed, why not take charge and do what we know best? Be Good, David ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 31 Aug 1999 04:14:08 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: jesse glass Subject: Re: Upcoming book on Japanese Surrealism MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit -----Original Message----- From: Mark Prejsnar To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Date: Monday, August 30, 1999 11:06 AM Subject: Re: Upcoming book on Japanese Surrealism >The review of Fault Lines is quite interesting. Thanks to a brief mention >on the List, i have been reading john Solt's really excellent and useful >Shredding the Tapestry of Meaning, a biography of Kitasono Katue, which >includes a number of fascinating translations... On occasion i would take >issue with Solt on certain ideas vis-a-vis western poetry, and on occasion >his understanding of just how meaning and form function in poetry seems a >little simplistic; but basically it is a dynamite book. I agree with you. He doesn't depend on fashionable jargon to make his point. Instead, his writing style is clear, direct, and user-friendly. > >Basically, his point is that the Japanese were taking what >they needed, and often had very little sense of what the French were >intending and doing (and didn't always necessarily care).... So true! This is the case with so many Japanese "borrowings" in culture, science and technology, government... so that >"Japanese surrealism" is a rather specific entity, not necessarily that >close to what we usually mean by the word... (i sure can't judge the >accuracy of this; but Solt's discussion is compelling and >fascinating...and it does square with the sense one gets from various >translations of Kitasono and Nishiwaki..) > >My personal feel, coming to this work in ignorance and lacking the >language, is that Solt's tranlations of Kitasono are extraordinary and of >great interest. I couldn't have said it better, Mark. John Solt--who has just left for an English teaching position in Thailand--has been active as a poet and translator since his early days as a student of Kenneth Rexroth. His translations are just what you say hey are...extraordinary. Glass Beret; The Selected Poems of Kitasono Katue, translated by John Solt and published by Morgan Press (don't have their address in front of me)--ISBN 1-880723-05-0 $30.00, is well worth the price. > >In any event, the recent emergence of this stuff is very exciting.... > >Mark P. > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 13:05:05 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAXINE CHERNOFF Subject: Reading In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII In San Francisco on Sept 11 at 5 pm, Attic Club, 3336 24th Street Paul Hoover and Maxine Chernoff, poetry reading ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 16:30:56 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brian Stefans Subject: Emile Nelligan's E-mail Address Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; Boundary="0__=1rab8jfj0pha31qCGAf28n3X1eN2cfexHLqf71YGDxbhRfj1XqvUasEh" --0__=1rab8jfj0pha31qCGAf28n3X1eN2cfexHLqf71YGDxbhRfj1XqvUasEh Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Actually, Nelligan's long dead, but I'll be heading up to Montreal this Thursday for the weekend and wanted to find out where the historic sites might be regarding this poet. Anybody out there have any information? The sites I've found -- of which there are a fair amount -- are all in French, and from what I can tell don't contain this type tourist (tripe), er, information. I'm especially interested in the location of the writer's group that he was a part of, l' --0__=1rab8jfj0pha31qCGAf28n3X1eN2cfexHLqf71YGDxbhRfj1XqvUasEh Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable =C9cole litt=E9raire de Montr=E9al, where he read "La Romance de Vin," interesting because he was carried around on the shoulders of his, er, "communiyt" that evening for having more or less created French Canadian poetry, and then went comatose with some form o= f schizophrenia two months later (at 20 ans). At least that's what I _read_ -- I'm sure someone who was there will correct me! But seriously, I'd love to find some locations. Cheers, Brian = --0__=1rab8jfj0pha31qCGAf28n3X1eN2cfexHLqf71YGDxbhRfj1XqvUasEh-- ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 13:45:43 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kathy Lou Schultz Subject: Re: social conformity vs Cid Corman Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Ah, but class differences DO exist--even among *poets*. (Yes we've been around this curve before.) I wouldn't chastise anyone for encouraging others to spread around resources. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Kathy Lou Schultz Editor & Publisher Lipstick Eleven/Duck Press www.duckpress.org 42 Clayton Street San Francisco, CA 94117-1110 ---------- >From: Mark Prejsnar >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: Re: social conformity vs Cid Corman >Date: Fri, Aug 27, 1999, 11:27 AM > >This seems a pretty lame response to the Corman thread. Does this poster >have any idea how much extra disposable income the various folks on the >thread HAVE? i guess he has plenty, from the assumptions he makes. But >most *poets* really don't got much.... > > >On Thu, 26 Aug 1999, A H Bramhall wrote: > >> Cid Corman needs financial backing so the answer this the poetry community >> reaches is to write letters? well that's a complicated enough reaction. >> (Great Pan Is Dead!). wouldn't money, the famous greengrab stuff, be more >> effective? not to fetishize money but the figurative BUCK is being passed >> here when a real one could be passed to someone who needs it. if that's the >> point here: I'm beginning to wonder. is my logic too deep? statements about >> community have resounded here recently but that's just yack for the cheap >> seats. community means exclusive neighbourhood, the usual who's in/who's out >> bullshit power structure. the fuckin Boston scene, the fuckin SF scene, the >> fuckin Philly scene. all just regional fuckin mugwumpism. you don't know >> community from horseshit so name the social club something else. you're >> waiting for someone important to talk to you, some authority, that's all. >> well Cid Corman already did. and, by the many accounts given, he is and has >> been a generous man, yet the response to his predicament is to look for a >> government or semi govt teat for him to suck on. charity begins with the >> government... sounds like those poli sci courses wore off. rather than >> barricading yourself in the administration building again, try sending him >> money. if, as I say, that's the point of this exercise. $$$Allen Bramhall$$$ >> ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 13:44:20 -1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Juliana Spahr Subject: fall festival in Hawai'i MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Not too late to book tickets (which I hear are cheap right now!) http://www2.hawaii.edu/~uhmeng/celebrate/ 3rd annual fall celebration of writers ALTER ENGLISHES all events are free and open to the public Friday, September 24 Yukiyoshi Room, Krauss Hall, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa 2:00 pm : Presentations Cecilia Vicuña: In Tongues Within Art Auditorium, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa 6:45 pm : Book Fair begins 7:30 pm : Readings Eric Gamalinda Cecilia Vicuña Lee Tonouchi Saturday, September 25 Yukiyoshi Room, Krauss Hall, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa 10:00 am : Presentations Ku‘ualoha Meyer Ho‘omanawanui: Challenges and Issues Faced by Contemporary Hawaiian Writers Anne Tardos: Multilingual Writing, for Example Lee Tonouchi: Da Death of Pidgin? Art Auditorium, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa 2:00 pm : Presentation Grace Molisa A writer and activist from Vanuatu, Grace Molisa will speak about writing in languages other than English and the intersection of language, gender, and human rights. Her presentation will be followed by a panel discussion of writers and scholars. This event is sponsored by the Hawai‘i Committee for the Humanities Art Auditorium, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa 6:45 pm : Book Fair begins 7:30 pm : Readings Ku‘ualoha Meyer Ho‘omanawanui Grace Molisa Anne Tardos Organized by Kyle Koza, Rodney Morales, Susan Schultz, Caroline Sinavaiana-Gabbard, Juliana Spahr, John Zuern, Sponsored by `A ‘A Arts Atherton Foundation Board of Publications, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa Creative Writing Program, Department of English, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa Hawai‘i Committee for the Humanities Hawai‘i Review National Endowment for the Humanities Fund, University of Hawai‘i Outreach College, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa We plan to publish proceedings of the conference at the website. Last year's readings are available in real audio at http://www2.hawaii.edu/~spahr/fallfestival ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 18:32:12 PDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: pete spence Subject: Re: address query Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed >From: Maria Damon >contact info needed ASAP for Cecilia Vicuna...thanks is this person from south america???/pete spence if so then maybe padin knows ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 19:40:52 PDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Ellis Subject: Re: social conformity vs Cid Corman Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Bramhall's response to the Corman "thread" is in fact at base not lame at all. We needn't presume for Bramhall any particular degree of wealth to notice that his post has mostly to do with the way work is distributed and financed - wch implies a responsibility not only of a readershp that reads, but a readership that is able to help bring material forward, put it out, ie., books, magazines, the whole nine yards. So, who pays for it? Since readership is an office, so to speak, that often sees itself as having acquired a special ability, the work on which these skills might be applied is expected to arrive free of charge, ie., the rout(e)ing of like minds. And that, in many ways, remains a fair assessment, tho how many poets give away copies of at least some of their work at readings, conferences and like venues? Cost these days has really become of consequence viz. means of publishing even the most modest gatherings; while there's always been money "about" for such - and the assumption is that there always will be more of it, from somewhere - the time is getting increasingly ripe toward finding out more precisely where that "somewhere" is. How much truth is there in the notion that many poets spend most of their "spare" money on their own publishing projects, while giving lip service sans coin to those of others that they "approve" of? Ie., where's the community? Literally, sure, it's readers, who are often writers who read in order to translate read texts into active and in part inverted orders of their own. Theirs. His. Hers. Ours. Who ARE these people? And why does their "getting along" so often look, when read between the lines, like so much Going Along? Ie., the swap of work for work, mag for mag, etc., is what really defines how "contemporary" any scene is, often at the expense of those not somehow "present" - poesis as a kind of market, (I cringe to think) as old goods are simply that, old. Corman in that sense somehow equivalent to the fineness of a 18th century three-legged chair, an antique. & who trades in antiquities? Collectors. As if Corman were a museum piece (not to say not also an important part of a considerable tradition). Bramhall's post, I think, speaks to that aspect of currency that seems the sort of commanding shallowness that presumes that "received goods" don't have to come from specific places, or, that if there IS work involved in "moving it", it's the work of someone else. Or should be. But the work is ours. Or is ours to the extent we have and live within the image of a community, virtual as it may be, tho it might remain one of USE to the extent it is useful. But what is useful? Tastes change. But there's an underlying current that buoys them into visibility, carries them ... where? Or in that sense of carrying and being carried, too, where are WE? is what it seems Bramhall is asking in a way that could be generative, could its ulterior motive be shattered into distributive sense rather than simply Identified, offered rather than taken, tho we shld not forget Berrigan's dictum out of Runyon, "Get The Money." What do you do with it, tho, after it's there, in terms of what anyone else is doing with (or without) theirs? Ie., who do you publish (or for that matter, who are you when "he" who was "you" THEN is writing), and FOR whom? As if anything, abeit it all finite, anyway ever had an end ... SPEND the money, it matter not how little. S E >From: Mark Prejsnar >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: Re: social conformity vs Cid Corman >Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 14:27:51 -0400 > >This seems a pretty lame response to the Corman thread. Does this poster >have any idea how much extra disposable income the various folks on the >thread HAVE? i guess he has plenty, from the assumptions he makes. But >most *poets* really don't got much.... > > >On Thu, 26 Aug 1999, A H Bramhall wrote: > > > Cid Corman needs financial backing so the answer this the poetry >community > > reaches is to write letters? well that's a complicated enough reaction. > > (Great Pan Is Dead!). wouldn't money, the famous greengrab stuff, be >more > > effective? not to fetishize money but the figurative BUCK is being >passed > > here when a real one could be passed to someone who needs it. if that's >the > > point here: I'm beginning to wonder. is my logic too deep? statements >about > > community have resounded here recently but that's just yack for the >cheap > > seats. community means exclusive neighbourhood, the usual who's in/who's >out > > bullshit power structure. the fuckin Boston scene, the fuckin SF scene, >the > > fuckin Philly scene. all just regional fuckin mugwumpism. you don't know > > community from horseshit so name the social club something else. you're > > waiting for someone important to talk to you, some authority, that's >all. > > well Cid Corman already did. and, by the many accounts given, he is and >has > > been a generous man, yet the response to his predicament is to look for >a > > government or semi govt teat for him to suck on. charity begins with the > > government... sounds like those poli sci courses wore off. rather than > > barricading yourself in the administration building again, try sending >him > > money. if, as I say, that's the point of this exercise. $$$Allen >Bramhall$$$ > > ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 20:04:25 PDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Ellis Subject: Re: social conformity vs Cid Corman (addendum) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed "Really don't got much" means how much, exactly? We're all a bunch of carpers, the whole human race, when it comes to money. That you (we) don't have much goes without saying; on a more positive note, how much, in fact, do you (we all, any of us) actually have? If everyone on the List contributed $20 to Corman or any -thing or -body else, who - aside from those who would insist FOREVER that "they really cld't afford it" - really CLDN'T afford it? It's weird, trying to get money from others for projects thought up by others than themselves. Deconstructive resolve only goes so far (one step forward and two steps back forever toward the outstretched hand, it seems); the Virtual Person we all rely on to invisibly come through when the rent's due, when you're the man who owes $532 on his gas bill, when there're no onions in sight, balks immeasurably when faced with the semblance of simple friendship involved in a mutualist ensemble of quantifiable grammar (to be published), because somebody in the end is gonna have to pay, and friendship's s'posed to be free, shit, so let's all go home and do our singular art. Alone. S E >From: Mark Prejsnar >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: Re: social conformity vs Cid Corman >Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 14:27:51 -0400 > >This seems a pretty lame response to the Corman thread. Does this poster >have any idea how much extra disposable income the various folks on the >thread HAVE? i guess he has plenty, from the assumptions he makes. But >most *poets* really don't got much.... > > >On Thu, 26 Aug 1999, A H Bramhall wrote: > > > Cid Corman needs financial backing so the answer this the poetry >community > > reaches is to write letters? well that's a complicated enough reaction. > > (Great Pan Is Dead!). wouldn't money, the famous greengrab stuff, be >more > > effective? not to fetishize money but the figurative BUCK is being >passed > > here when a real one could be passed to someone who needs it. if that's >the > > point here: I'm beginning to wonder. is my logic too deep? statements >about > > community have resounded here recently but that's just yack for the >cheap > > seats. community means exclusive neighbourhood, the usual who's in/who's >out > > bullshit power structure. the fuckin Boston scene, the fuckin SF scene, >the > > fuckin Philly scene. all just regional fuckin mugwumpism. you don't know > > community from horseshit so name the social club something else. you're > > waiting for someone important to talk to you, some authority, that's >all. > > well Cid Corman already did. and, by the many accounts given, he is and >has > > been a generous man, yet the response to his predicament is to look for >a > > government or semi govt teat for him to suck on. charity begins with the > > government... sounds like those poli sci courses wore off. rather than > > barricading yourself in the administration building again, try sending >him > > money. if, as I say, that's the point of this exercise. $$$Allen >Bramhall$$$ > > ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 31 Aug 1999 12:44:55 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Kirschenbaum Subject: Booglit Reviews: Dale Smith Delivers Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Dale Smith Delivers Dale Smith is one of the best editors I know. His work as a coeditor, first with Mike & Dale’s Younger Poets, and now, with Skanky Possum, always gives me all the people whose words I want in my bookcase in one compact litzine. I’ve scanned his postings, but until this past Saturday, had never read his poetry. Saturday, a package of two books from Joshua Beckman’s 811 Books (checks payable to Joshua Beckman/ YWCA/ Writer’s Voice/ 350 North First Avenue/ Phoenix, AZ 85003) arrived in my mailbox between my trips from the Yankees game to the tailor. I read Dale Smith's new book, "Arabia Felix," while walking through my Chelsea apartment’s backyard, past the playground, down the alley, and to the drug store to develop some photographs. I finished the book as I crossed 24th Street on my way by the playground again, and was sad. I never wanted more pages in a poetry chapbook in my life. In "Arabia Felix," Dale Smith delivers. (5x7”, 8-page black ink on ivory paper guts, + cover with black and blue ink and uncredited cover artwork on ivory paper, $3.) He details an Ethiopian trip, captures little pictures and takes apart his own self-importance. Here’s a few lines: “Some men gather to ease the body of a boy from the hood of a Land Cruiser, the glass like ice on his blood.” And after detailing pieces of his visit, he sums it up with: “Rats that night ran under table, a German tourist told me ‘you have to conquer each city for yourself.’” Dale Smith’s "Arabia Felix" is simply the most beautiful combination of words and book design I have seen in a poetry chapbook in a long time. Be Good, David A. Kirschenbaum, editor Booglit ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 17:19:19 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Walsh Subject: Re: NYC Bookstores MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Dear Ramez Qureshi, St Marks Books (3rd Ave and 9th St) will usually have Sulfur (and other such periodicals) -- in the back, on the right, across from the remainders. Their poetry books are not so good, but they sometimes have some things, and so might have Swenson. Good luck, Michael Walsh ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 31 Aug 1999 11:02:52 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bill Lavender Subject: An Other South: Reading and Symposium Comments: To: Staci Swedeen , Stanley Blair , Stephen Doiron , Steve Wilson , TABORWARRN , Tim Smith , Timothy Materer , Paige DeShong , Pamela Kirk Prentice , Patty Ryan , paul maltby , rlehan , Steve Barancik , Randy Prunty , Rogan Stearns , "Sean H. O'Leary" , Sara McAulay , Robert Brophy , Patricia Burchfield , Staci Bleecker , rita hiller , Stacey Bowden , Suzanne Mark , ralph stephens , Tatiana Stoumen , Todd Nettleton , Ruth Rakestraw , Robin Kemp , Patrice Melnick , Sam Broussard , Pat McFerren , Sara Wallace , Sandy Labry , Richard Crews , susan middaugh , Rhonda Blanchard , "Tammy D. Harvey" , Tana Bradley , Walt McDonald , Wendell Mayo , William Ryan , William Sylvester , Zach Smith , William Pitt Root and Pamela Uschuk , Writers' Forum , "Whitten, Phyllis" MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" New Orleans Review and Loyola University announce -------------------------------------------- An Other South, Symposium and Poetry Reading -------------------------------------------- Saturday, November 13, 1999 University Center, Loyola University, New Orleans 2:00 PM: A Symposium on the Southern, the Regional, the Experimental 8:00 PM: Readings by Contributors to An Other South, New Orleans Review 25-1 Please help us celebrate the publication of this exciting issue of New Orleans Review. All contributors are invited to read, and everyone is invited to attend. Please reply to this email if you would like to attend and need help finding a place to stay in New Orleans, or if you have any other questions. There will be no charge for any of the events. The Symposium: All interested parties are invited to submit proposals for short presentations; the presentations may be in any form, from a simple essay to a multi-person performance or audio/visual extravaganza, but may not exceed ten minutes in length. Topics should be within the range of issues raised by this issue of New Orleans Review, "An Other South: Experimental Writing in the South." Possible broad topics might include (though certainly not be limited to): What is an Experiment? Is the term still valid, or has "the Experimental" become just another genre? What is a region? What is the relationship of geographical boundaries (like "the South") with contemporary poetry? What literary traditions (ie, Language, post-Language, surrealism, Modernism, etc.) and/or individual writers are of interest for the current Southern literary scene? What are the political and cannonical implications of experimentation in the South? This list is not intended to be exhaustive, nor even extensive. Please feel free to suggest your own topics, to combine or divide any of the suggestions. Please submit proposals as soon as possible- no later than October 20. Submit via email or ground mail to: Bill Lavender Co-Editor (with Ralph Adamo) of An Other South, New Orleans Review 25-1 email: wlavende@uno.edu ground: 5568 Woodlawn Place New Orleans, LA 70124 phone (504) 486 8868 The Reading: The list of contributors, all of whom are invited to read, follows. A final list of readers and symposium participants will be published shortly before the event. Doug MacCash Jim Leftwich Hank Lazer Skip Fox Joel Dailey Camille Martin Gerry Cannon Celestine Frost A. Di Michele Bob Grumman Lorenzo Thomas David Thomas Roberts Niyi Osundare Jake Berry Dave Brinks Lindsay Hill Alex Rawls John Elsberg Mark Spitzer Bill Myers Seth Young Jonathan Brannen Andy Young M. Sarki Greg Fuchs Christopher Chambers Bill Lavender Richard Doherty Nancy Harris Dennis Formento Greg Kelley Susan Facknitz Brett Evans Kay Murphy Amy Trussel Paul Naylor Marla Jernigan Gina Entrebe James Saunders Randy Prunty Mark Prejsnar M. Magoolaghan Rebecca Hyman )ohnLowther Lawless Crow Bill Lavender Co-Editor, An Other South New Orleans Review ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 31 Aug 1999 15:18:46 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: I used to be the future of America... In-Reply-To: <01JFDWUWGOQM8WXW3U@MAIL.HARTFORD.EDU> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Michael -- Actually, they have quite a bit, for New York -- from Bernstein to Berrigan to Coolidge to Hejinian to Mlinko to Notley -- they're no Bridge Street Books, but they're a sight better than Barnes & Noble -- and then there's always the halfprice stock at The Strand (12th & Bway) -- Jordan On Mon, 30 Aug 1999, Michael Walsh wrote: > Dear Ramez Qureshi, > > St Marks Books (3rd Ave and 9th St) will usually have > Sulfur (and other such periodicals) -- in the back, on > the right, across from the remainders. Their poetry books > are not so good, but they sometimes have some things, > and so might have Swenson. > > Good luck, > Michael Walsh > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 31 Aug 1999 15:20:20 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: more power to the affluent poets In-Reply-To: <19990831030427.99055.qmail@hotmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Welll. There seem to be lots of folks on the list who are certain just how affluent others are... I do know many people who cannot spare $20 for cid corman, if they are going to have the bills pd and a modicum of groceries. Then there are the many folks who cdn't do it without dropping support they are giving to a poetry publication (which would cause the ceasing of that publication). And as i'm working class and a socialist, there have always been plenty of folks i know who have commited themselves to paying dues or support to a political party or a union...and that again is not something you take on lightly: it involves the ultimate possibility of hope for all of us. A benefit project sounds nice, and those who are in a position to donate the labor, creativity and capital, should certainly do it.. (but i didn't dis that idea, to begin with, obviously...) As someone who's lived plenty close to the poverty line over some decades, i find the tone of some of these posts (not having extra money is "carping") a bit peculiar, not to say weird.... Do these folks live in the same universe as me/ (or more to the point, the same social system??) --Mp On Mon, 30 Aug 1999, Stephen Ellis wrote: > "Really don't got much" means how much, exactly? We're all a bunch of > carpers, the whole human race, when it comes to money. That you (we) don't > have much goes without saying; on a more positive note, how much, in fact, > do you (we all, any of us) actually have? If > > everyone on the List contributed $20 to Corman or any -thing or -body else, > who - aside from those who would insist FOREVER that "they really cld't > afford it" - really CLDN'T afford it? It's weird, > > trying to get money from others for projects thought up by others than > themselves. Deconstructive resolve only goes so far (one step forward and > two steps back forever toward the outstretched hand, it seems); the Virtual > Person we all rely on to invisibly come through when the rent's due, when > you're the man who owes $532 on his gas bill, when there're no onions in > sight, balks immeasurably when faced with the semblance of simple friendship > involved in a mutualist ensemble of quantifiable grammar (to be published), > because somebody in the end is gonna have to pay, and friendship's s'posed > to be free, shit, > > so let's all go home and do our singular art. Alone. > > S E > > > > >From: Mark Prejsnar > >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group > >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > >Subject: Re: social conformity vs Cid Corman > >Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 14:27:51 -0400 > > > >This seems a pretty lame response to the Corman thread. Does this poster > >have any idea how much extra disposable income the various folks on the > >thread HAVE? i guess he has plenty, from the assumptions he makes. But > >most *poets* really don't got much.... > > > > > >On Thu, 26 Aug 1999, A H Bramhall wrote: > > > > > Cid Corman needs financial backing so the answer this the poetry > >community > > > reaches is to write letters? well that's a complicated enough reaction. > > > (Great Pan Is Dead!). wouldn't money, the famous greengrab stuff, be > >more > > > effective? not to fetishize money but the figurative BUCK is being > >passed > > > here when a real one could be passed to someone who needs it. if that's > >the > > > point here: I'm beginning to wonder. is my logic too deep? statements > >about > > > community have resounded here recently but that's just yack for the > >cheap > > > seats. community means exclusive neighbourhood, the usual who's in/who's > >out > > > bullshit power structure. the fuckin Boston scene, the fuckin SF scene, > >the > > > fuckin Philly scene. all just regional fuckin mugwumpism. you don't know > > > community from horseshit so name the social club something else. you're > > > waiting for someone important to talk to you, some authority, that's > >all. > > > well Cid Corman already did. and, by the many accounts given, he is and > >has > > > been a generous man, yet the response to his predicament is to look for > >a > > > government or semi govt teat for him to suck on. charity begins with the > > > government... sounds like those poli sci courses wore off. rather than > > > barricading yourself in the administration building again, try sending > >him > > > money. if, as I say, that's the point of this exercise. $$$Allen > >Bramhall$$$ > > > > > ______________________________________________________ > Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com >